One Responses by Indu Antony

Bengaluru based artist Indu Antony’s practice is testimony to the ways in which artistic gestures can prompt an acknowledgement of and conversations about marginalised and silenced social experiences. Titling this exhibition Oru marupadikal (One responses) Antony references Tottaikkattu Madhavi Amma, founding member of the Kochi Legislative Council and her critique of the newspaper Malayala Manorama’s lack of nuanced and honest reportage, beginning with an inaccurate pen-portrait the newspaper published, calling it “hyperbole…for making her visage look attractive” (19th September 1925). The lack of nuance, the danger of telling any story from a single lens, the ease with which we are willing to be blindsided is the challenge of Antony’s intention. She draws on personal experiences to weave narratives that incorporate a variety of social maladies, from gendered norms and othering to harassment and sexual abuse. Her practice, which has its roots in photography, has grown in materiality and thus she creates installations using found objects, text, hair and analogue photography.

The tempo of Antony’s work is in tune with the affect of her subject - incomprehension and silenced rage in “Names they called” which addresses eve-teasing; nostalgia and tenderness in “I brought her up like gold” where each of the 28 jewellery boxes contains one gold phial with an oft heard prayer or statement alongside a photograph of the artist; memory and loneliness in her self-published book “Why can’t bras have buttons” made during lockdown and its accompanying isolation; importance of a acknowledging our diverse social fabric in her small sewn plastic toys “Six women being pushed gently” and “Different coloured birds stood next to each other” and poignancy over the imagined lives of others in a series of salt print portraits edged with the artist’s hair in “Ivar” which engages with transient nature of romance. Seriality is a defining aspect of Antony’s work, as she explains, ‘repetition instills a thought, or perhaps it’s my way of talking to myself’.

Drawing on individual and community engagements as much as Antony does, it is to be expected that she creates spaces of togetherness and dialogue. Alongside her studio which already doubles as a community art space and her work with anganwadis, she will shortly be opening ‘Namma Katte’, an undefined shop or a leisure space in the heart of a busy local bazaar which will be run by several people and function variously as a breakfast nook, community hall, shop and studio. 
 

Text Deeksha Nath  
Date 20-12-2021