Photo Kathmandu 2018 - EXHIBITION: Whose And Whom – The Body As A Political Landscape
Channel: PhotoKTM
Date: 2018-10-30

Curated by Anshika Varma

Chyasal Community Center, Patan

Exhibiting Artists:
Amak Mahmoodian – Shenasnameh
Dragana Jurisic – Mnemosyne’s Daughters
Heba Khamis – Banned Beauty
Lissa Rivera – Beautiful Boy
Mary Frey – Body/Parts
Miia Autio – Variation of White
Soumya Sankar Bose – Full Moon on a Dark Night
Shahria Sharmin – Call me Heena
Sophal Neak – Flower
Tomaso Clavarino – Confiteor
Ulla Deventer – Butterflies are a Sign of a Good Thing

Rang pe kisne pehre dale,
Roop ko kisne baandha.
-Sahir Ludhianvi, Chitralekha (1964)

(Who are these guardians of colour)
(Who tied down our notions of beauty)

Whose and Whom looks at ideas and notions created by a society that restricts one’s sense of identity. The body, elemental in the process of understanding oneself, is measured through the polarising prisms of gender, sexuality, age and the colour of our skin. We become a territory to be colonized by social, geographic and economic constructs/ institutions, erasing the space to recognize/explore the place of the individual.

Power, discrimination, exploitation and privilege are marked upon our bodies. The diktat on the female form, racial inequality, nudity and ideas of beauty and colour are inscribed on us and shape our ideas of the self.

Who are the people subjected to these ideas? What happens to people and communities who defy such imposed norms?

Whose and Whom looks at the body as a site upon which social and political constructs are mapped to establish hierarchies of power. It observes the physicality of the body as an integral aspect in the formation of one’s identity.