Ep 18: Remembering the Present - The 1947 Partition

On this Artalaap episode, I, Kamayani Sharma, speak to artist Pritika Chowdhry, whose solo exhibition 'Unbearable Memories, Unspeakable Histories' featuring her anti-memorials to the Partition is currently on view at the South Asia Institute, Chicago. We talk about the politics of memorialising the 1947 South Asian Partition, the aesthetic challenge of representing collective trauma and the influence of feminist historiography on understanding the Partition. We also touch upon drawing parallels with other colonial divisions of territory as well as ongoing civil conflict in the global south, and the limits of testimony in the contemporary period. You can learn more about the exhibition here: https://www.saichicago.org/exhibition/pritika-chowdhry-unbearable-memories-unspeakable-histories or at the South Asia Institute, Chicago's Instagram page @southasiainstitute. Click here to access the Image+ Guide & view the material being discussed in the podcast: https://sites.google.com/view/artalaap-podcast-resources/episode-18. For a time-stamped list of Contents, click here: http:/bit.ly/3CeUTWz LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST HERE: Pritika Chowdhry is a feminist and postcolonial artist, curator, and writer whose work is in both public and private collections. Chowdhry has exhibited nationally and internationally in group and solo exhibitions in the Weisman Art Museum, Queens Museum, Hunterdon Museum, Islip Art Museum, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, DoVA Temporary, Brodsky Center, and Cambridge Art Gallery. Her work has been written up in various scholarly publications, including the journals GeoHumanities, Social Transformations Journal of the Global South, and Progress in Human Geography, in addition to news outlets such as CBS, NBC, and Hindustan Times. She is the recipient of Vilas International Travel Fellowship, Edith and Sinaiko Frank Fellowship for a Woman in the Arts, Wisconsin Arts Board grant, and Minnesota State Arts Board grant. She has presented her studio research projects at various national conferences, such as International Arts Symposium at NYU, The Contested Terrains of Globalization at UC-Irvine, and the South Asian Conference at UW-Madison. Chowdhry holds an MFA in Studio Art and an MA in Visual Culture and Gender Studies from UW-Madison and has taught at Macalester College and the College of Visual Arts. Born and raised in India, Chowdhry is currently based in Chicago. Credits: Producer: Squarewave Studios, New Delhi Executive Producer: Kanishka Sharma Intern: Priya Thakur Images courtesy Pritika Chowdhry Design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee Marketing: Dipalie Mehta Additional support: Raghav Sagar Patreon support: Shalmoli Halder Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CC BY-NC 4.0]

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