A new show, Frozen World of The Familiar Stranger, being hosted at Khoj Studios, New Delhi, deals with anonymity and alienation of global urban life. It throws open questions on the subject of alienation to the public at large. What is it like to be anonymous in a city? Or is it a subterfuge many of us resort to in order to deal with a growing sense of anxiety and alienation in an ultra-modern global megalopolis?
“The name of the show is borrowed from a 1970s essay by American social psychologist Stanley Milgram,” says Sitara Chowfla, the show’s curator. “Milgram wrote about the idea of urban anonymity and the idea of feeling estranged from our fellow city dwellers. His writing and experimentation on this subject was a major inspiration for our curatorial process, and we were struck by how salient the concept seems now, decades later. We were inspired to revisit his observations in some symbolic way, through the lens of these brilliant artists.”
Drawing a parallel between the urban alienation and angst in metropolises like Delhi and San Francisco, the exhibition also unfolds the dilemma of human mind living deprived of company. “Frozen World of the Familiar Strange reflects upon the uncanny sensation of the ultra-modern global megalopolis, and the increasing sense of alienation we encounter in our flattening world. Through works exploring isolation, confinement, collapse, transience, anxieties, and fantasies of inhabiting collective urban space, the show offers an almost satirical point of view on the human condition and what it means to be alive in the present, and in the constructed future,” says Chowfla.
A collaboration between Kadist, an alternative art space in San Francisco and Khoj, this group exhibition comprising of video installations, performances and artworks is featuring ten Indian and international artists.
“The name of the show is borrowed from a 1970s essay by American social psychologist Stanley Milgram,” says Sitara Chowfla, the show’s curator.
Indian artist Kartik Sood’s work explores the character’s experience of loneliness in an urban environment. He is showing a mixed-media work consisting of two videos, mixed-media painting, and two sculptures in iron and clay titled Alone Among Many 2016.“The ironic loneliness in the crowded structures of the city and the subsequent search for solace within it — an act of illusion in itself — forms the prelude to my inquiry,” says Sood. His imagery could well be scenes from a dream. “Ranging in format from photos to sculpture, video installations alongside renditions on paper and paintings, my works often become objects of closer introspection with every perceptible glance — almost like a recollection.”
One of the most significant figures from the generation of Chinese artists, Cao Fei has emerged on the global front in the past decade La Town (2014), a video work by this Chinese artist aims to place us in the midst of an either recent past or impending catastrophe. “Using tiny models, I have creates a world suspended somewhere between reality and dystopia, a ‘world community’ in miniature, where a happy coexistence is no more than a promise, a brief interlude in the unrelenting tide of a violent, destructive history. Inspired by Asian pop culture, my work vividly reflects the changes in image production, lifestyle, culture, and identity in relation to globalization.” La Town poses grave questions about the future of humanity, isolation, and connectivity in a city that can be related to most cities.
Sahej Rahal an Indian artist has on display few photographs that document performances titled Keeper (2015) and Katabasis (2011). “Keeper was shot in Shodoshima, Japan, at the foothold of the Yoshida Dam, which holds a man made ‘island’ behind it. Formed by the ebbing flow of water held by the dam, the isolated island had never been set foot on. Through the course of the performance, the ‘Keeper’ played by Yuichiro Takarada (a municipal officer from Shodoshima), along with other performers visit or ‘breach’ the otherwise untouched island. Shot inside the old art deco-style Opera House in Mumbai, Katabasis features a burly shamanic being occupying the only working elevator, and physically impeding the movement of other residents, as they attempt to move in and out of the building,” says Rahal.
Rahal has also delivered a performance titled Contingent Farewell, Act 2 where a being from an absent civilization leaves behind fragments and residues within our own. Act 1 of this narrative unfolded in San Francisco, as the first part of a ritual of displacement stretching time and space to bind the two exhibition sites (KADIST and KHOJ) together.
The show is on at Khoj Studios, New Delhi till 11 January