Growing Like A Tree: Static In The Air

Ishara Art Foundation is pleased to present Growing Like A Tree: Static In The Air, the second iteration of Sohrab Hura’s debut curation Growing Like A Tree.

The exhibition presents Hura’s navigation in the fields of photography and contemporary art through a tuning of sonic frequencies spanning South Asia and beyond. Resembling the act of switching radio-stations, Static In The Air takes a dynamic approach to exhibition-making through a series of curatorial interventions with 15 artists and collectives from Bangladesh, Germany, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

From September 11 to September 16, the former iteration goes through a relay of transitions where newly added works sit side by side with existing works, shifting in sound volumes and scales. Together they form a cumulative current of still and moving images, traces and texts that linger and transform. According to Hura, the reference to frequencies is a reminder of how the present cannot be cut off from the past or the future.

Static In The Air emphasises a traversing of the world through listening. It gestures towards echo-locations in the field of image-making practices across geographic borders, drawing new nodes, maps and interconnections. The curation embodies these ideas as it enfolds multiple narratives, layering the visitor’s experience of time and space across contexts.

The ensemble of artists and collectives in the second iteration include Aishwarya Arumbakkam, Bunu Dhungana, Farah Mulla, Jaisingh Nageswaran, Katrin Koenning, Kushal Ray, Nida Mehboob, Prantik Basu, Rahee Punyashloka, Reetu Sattar, Sarker Protick, Sathish Kumar, The Packet, Zainab Mufti, and a citation of Raqs Media Collective along with site-specific interventions by Sohrab Hura.

The exhibition is open from Saturday to Thursday, 10 am – 7 pm. No pre-booking is required. Wearing masks is compulsory for all visitors in compliance with health and safety regulations.

Photo: Zainab, from the series The Weight of Snow on Her Chest, 2019 – ongoing

Exhibition Transformations

11 September: Transformation 1 (Clusters)
Experience the Virtual Tour and a Conversation with artists here.

12 September: Transformation 2 (Collapse)
Experience the Virtual Tour and a Conversation with artists here.

13 September: Transformation 3 (Intimacy)
Experience the Virtual Tour and a Conversation with artists here.

14 September: Transformation 4 (Peaks)
Experience the Virtual Tour and a Conversation with artists here.

15 September: Transformation 5 (Kheyal)
Experience the Virtual Tour and a Conversation with artists here.

16 September: Transformation 6 (Valves)
Experience the Virtual Tour and a Conversation with artists here.

Artist Biography

(b.1988) is an artist from Chennai, India, currently based in Austin, Texas.

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Farah Mulla (b. 1988) is a multimedia artist based in Mumbai. Her background in science overlaps with her art practice to explore the perception of sound and its effects on human neurology and subjectivity.

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Jaysingh Nageswaran is a self-taught photographer from Madurai, Tamil Nadu. Born dyslexic to working-class parents, he was taught by his grandmother at home, and went on to do his Masters in Mass Communication.

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Nida Mehboob is a photographer & filmmaker based in Lahore, Pakistan. She graduated as a pharmacist and went on to pursue photography.

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Sarker Protick (b. 1986) is a photographer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. His practice combines the roles of an image-maker, a teacher and a curator.

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Reetu Sattar (b.1981) works between Dhaka and Berlin with an interdisciplinary practice that encompasses live performance, documentation and objects as archival memories in an effort to re-examine history and human perception.

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Sathish Kumar (b.1986) is a freelance photographer based in Chennai, India. A large part of his school vacations growing up were spent at his uncle’s photo studio, which became an inspiration for him to pursue photography.

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Bunu Dhungana is an artist based in Kathmandu, Nepal. She uses photography as a medium to explore and question the world around her.

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Katrin Koenning (b. 1978) is an artist from the German Ruhrgebiet, currently based in Naarm, Melbourne Australia.

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Kushal Ray (b.1960) is an artist based in Kolkata, India. He started his career with The Telegraph newspaper in 1982 as a sports journalist, which is where he took to photography.

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Prantik Basu (b. 1986) is a filmmaker and screenwriter based in Kolkata, India. Oscillating between fiction, non-fiction and folk narratives, Basu's work engages with the politics of gender and the fragile relation between humans and nature.

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Rahee Punyashloka (b. 1993) is a writer, visual artist, and filmmaker based in New Delhi. His video works, especially the Noise Reduction series, are philosophical inquiries into the nature of how we perceive, process and remember the materiality of images.

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Raqs Media Collective (established in 1992). The word “raqs” in several languages denotes an intensification of awareness and presence attained by whirling, turning, being in a state of revolution.

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The Packet (established in 2019) is made up of a group of artists from Sri Lanka. With a particular focus on hyper-locality, collaborative processes and conversation, it grew out of 8 artists coming together to realize an artist publication entitled The Packet.

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Zainab (b.1998) is a visual artist based in Kashmir. She has just finished her honors in journalism and mass communication at Government College for Women.

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