Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts in partnership with the Ishara Art Foundation opened the show Growing Like A Tree: Sent A Letter, a curatorial debut by Bunu Dhungana and Sadia Marium Rupa.
Marking the third iteration of the exhibition initially curated by artist Sohrab Hura at Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai in 2021, the show expands on Hura’s collective journeys with practitioners across geographic borders.
The title draws from Dayanita Singh’s work Sent A Letter (2007) that was exhibited as a citation in the first iteration of the show. Expanding on the idea that an unopened photo-book can enfold within it diaries, exhibitions and correspondences, Growing Like A Tree: Sent A Letter returns to this source to evoke the tactile act of composing letters. “It gathers images and sounds as dispatches from artistic journeys across different contexts, highlighting the shared moments of nurture, decay, desire, pollination and memory-making.”
Comprising of photography, artist-books, texts, films, video and sound installations, it reflects the complex and imbricated histories of South Asia and the world. Bringing together new and previously presented works, the curation pushes the boundaries of contemporary image-making as modes of address that offer a changing map of interconnected practices.
The ensemble of artists and collectives in the exhibition includes Aishwarya Arumbakkam, Vinita Barretto, Uma Bista, Dolly Devi, Shaheen Dill-Riaz, Pooja Gurung & Bibhusan Basnet, Alana Hunt, Ipshita Maitra, Farah Mulla, Nida Mehboob, Jaisingh Nageswaran, Ali Monis Naqvi, Gaurang Naik, Sarker Protick, Sathish Kumar, The Packet, Priyadarshini Ravichandran, Rajee Samarasinghe, Suneil Sanzgiri, Sylvia Schedelbauer, Prasiit Sthapit, Maryam Tafakory, Avani Tanya and Zainab, along with a citation of Dayanita Singh’s Sent A Letter.
With site-specific notations by Sohrab Hura, his role as a curator tunes out with the third iteration inviting new curatorial voices that proliferate the growing of the tree into a forest.
The collaboration between the two organisations provides a unique opportunity to witness path-breaking curatorial directions in the field of contemporary art within the subcontinent.
Exhibition brochure: Click here
Ishara Art Foundation was founded in 2019 as a non-profit organisation dedicated to presenting contemporary art of South Asia. Located in Dubai, the Foundation supports emerging and established practices that advance critical dialogue and explore global interconnections.
