Harsh Light: A Particular Reality, Part 1 - Shivani Patel, Abhaya Rajani & Aaliah Qureshi
Wednesday 7 September, 7 – 8:30pm
Online (via Zoom)
Free & open to all
We are very excited to present this year’s 2nd instalment of Harsh Light on Wed 7 September 2022.
Started during the first wave of Covid in 2020, Harsh Light has become an online gathering space for practitioners and publics alike to parse out the ways we have been surviving these critical, changing times. All sessions are BSL interpreted.
Our speakers use Harsh Light as a platform to work through one or two more precise questions related to their practice, particularly ones that are connected to systemic challenges of public health, politics and Arts Council England’s strategy. We invite you to look back at our archive of conversations if you are interested in understanding the many different concerns and strategies that practitioners have articulated over the course of Covid.
In collaboration with A Particular Reality (APR), Bloc Projects is pleased to present two conversations this autumn that foreground the practices and life experiences of artists who are differently marginalised. The first of them will feature APR artists Shivani Patel, Abhaya Rajani & Aaliah Qureshi.
Connected by their early-career pursuits in contemporary art as well as their South Asian heritage, the three artists are using Harsh Light to talk and think through Casteism. Called an ‘unnameable injustice’ by activist and philosopher Meena Dhanda, it manifests insidiously in many of the artists’ relationships, as its effects on people are often deliberately minimised in South Asian diasporas globally.
The session opens with a collective reading of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s ‘Annihilation of Caste’, a speech commissioned in the 1930s by a Hindu reformist group that was never delivered due to its perceived controversial perspective. This is followed by the artists’ sharing of their own encounters that bring to life the innumerous valences in which Caste operates. Such experiences inevitably bleed into their practice, which then lead to the following questions: what limits and responsibilities do we have as young, diaspora artists to contend with these issues? How do we feel about the need to ‘represent’? To what extent is artistic labour a facet of political resistance? And what about everything else we want to do as artists?
In Shivani’s words: ‘I am a British South Asian artist and within my practice, I investigate themes of cultural heritage, diaspora and dual identity. As a recent graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University, I hope my work sparks conversations regarding these themes, bringing an awareness and accuracy to South Asian beliefs within western settings.’
Abhaya is a London-based multidisciplinary artist and MA Print graduate at the Royal College of Art. She is interested in the object politics of Accessibility and Inaccessibility, Functionality and Dysfunctionality. Her work investigates the parallels between human identities and non-human complexities.
She has exhibited internationally including Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst (Bremen), Benaki Museum (Athens) as well as in the UK at Royal Cambrian Academy, Yorkton Workshops, Cromwell Place, Hoxton 253 and AirSpace Gallery amongst others. Her work Use As Per The Instructions was shortlisted for the Signature Art Prize 2021. Abhaya is a 2021-22 recipient of the Stanley Picker Fellowship at Kingston University.
Aaliah Qureshi
Aaliah is a Pakistani visual artist working between tactile and digital media to unpick the relationship between herself and her identity. Combining sensory elements like touch and sound with photography and text, Aaliah explores themes related to memory, loss, and materiality.
Bloc Projects is proud to maintain a public programme that is free for everyone. However, attendees are encouraged to donate to the S2 Foodbank, who are carrying out essential work during this time. To donate either follow the link on our homepage or click the button below.
This programme of events has been generously supported by Arts Council England