Light installation on Mumbai shore questions religion, gender, identity

Light dances through tiny bulbs arranged in a scramble of English, Hindi and Urdu cursive words, on four rows of an 18-feet wide light-art installation that resembles a banner on two poles. All the three languages translate the same line – We change each other. When one script comes on, the other two switch off. This creation by contemporary Indian artist Shilpa Gupta has been standing at Mumbai's Carter Road seafront since New Year's Eve. Its presence has had joggers and casual loiterers rendezvousing in the salt-breeze, halt, ruminate on its meaning, and admire the installation's ability to weave itself to the canvas of the foamy rocks, coconut trees, wintry grey skies, street lamps, and mild cacophony of the traffic behind. For instance, two collegians were struggling to capture the animated artwork on their cell phones as the words kept melting into blurry swirls of white light. They switched to night mode, used flash, then jabbed at the screen to redeem focus, and finally rejoiced when, for a few seconds, it did. "If we do good work, others will be inspired to follow," is how they rationalised the text, when I asked them.

Having a relaxed discussion on the paved steps was an LIC agent, his wife and son. The agent muses, "We used to say that we shouldn't change the other but try to compromise or adapt ourselves to that person. But, this work says we can change others!" His wife quips, "I think it means we only change what we acquire based on what we think are good qualities from others," she says, while looking fairly amused at a young couple standing close to the installation clicking countless selfies laced with mush.

Gupta, one of India's leading contemporary artists, also a Bandra girl and a regular at the promenade, uses the three languages used by dominant religious communities in her neighbourhood to forge dialogues on gender, identity, politics and religion. "Whether it's on the edge of the nation state or within an internal space, at home or on the streets, there is not one particular moment we can identify as this is when we changed each other. It's a series of continuous engagements," says Gupta, who is always playing with objects that run into in-between spaces. "It's about the impossibility of fencing, of separating two entities that we'd like to guard and separate, but that in actuality doesn't happen — whether it's the idea of a nation state or a personal relationship."

Throughout her practice, Gupta has constantly questioned the subject of 'borders', both seen and unseen. For instance, she highlights the illegal trade practices around the India-Bangladesh border by making drawings using Phensedyl – a codine-based cough syrup, banned in Bangladesh for its alcohol content but not in India – and marijuana, banned in both nations. "Illegal trade is three times the legal trade here, because there are historical and social affinities across the two sides that allow a certain porosity to take place," says Gupta. Then, 1:14.9 (2011–12) is a hand-wound ball of thread documenting the 1188.5 miles of the fence marking the Indo-Pak border. In two series of 100 Hand Drawn Maps, locals in India were asked to sketch their country's maps from memory, most of their drawings showing inaccurate borders. In Blame, bottles of simulated blood were handed out on trains, labelled with disclaimers of blaming the other for their religion and nationality.

We change each other has had earlier versions too. At this very spot, in 2013, stood her 2004 work, I Live Under Your Sky Too. Her My East is Your West (2014) artwork lent the Indo-Pak podium its title at the Venice Biennale, while Deep below, the sky flows under our feet was a circular installation, nestling under coconut trees at the Pune Biennial 2016. A neon-light setup, Today will End (2011) travelled to Vevey, Abu Dhabi and St Moritz Art Masters festival, while LED installation of WheredoIendandyoubegin (2012) was positioned at the city train tracks for Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art. And this batch of works, she feels, "are in conversation with each other".

Gupta's other works, which are a departure from the text-and-light-based public art installation at Bandra, also question boundaries. One other subjects of obsession, microphones, looms unsettlingly in the shape of a rock at the ongoing NGV Triennial 2017 in Melbourne. She's also excited about showing her work on 100 people who've changed their last names at the MoMA this year. Close on the heels is Houston's FotoFest International 2018 Biennial. Also in the offing are solo shows at Baku's Yarat Contemporary Art Centre, London's Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art and Mumbai's Chemould Prescott Road gallery.
              
On view till February 18