Ishara Art Foundation has announced a new exhibition, called “Sheher, Prakriti, Devi”, which marks artist and photographer Gauri Gill’s first extensive curation.
Ruminating on the interwoven relationship between dynamic cities, the natural environment and the inseparable sacred, the show presents twelve artists and collectives working across diverse contexts of urban, rural, domestic, communitarian, public and non-material spaces.
“Sheher, Prakriti, Devi” comes from the Hindustani terms for ‘city’, ‘nature’ and ‘deity’. The exhibition germinates from Gill’s ongoing documentation of urban and semi-urban spaces in India since 2003 in a series titled ‘Rememory’ (after Toni Morrison).
Gill offers a unique lens to regard cities as spaces of habitation that are shaped by multiple life-worlds.
Together with various practitioners with whom she shares an affinity, the exhibition presents a world where built and natural structures are rendered porous by termites; gates open to unfinished roads; historical ruins become homes to migratory birds while pigeons become occupants of post-colonial houses; locusts bear witness to contemporary terrors and forests manifest as spirit sisters.
In this show, viewers are invited to regard ecology as an overlap of cultural, natural and spiritual domains.
The exhibition is on view until the 1st of June at the Ishara Art Foundation, Alserkal Avenue in Dubai, UAE.
