MANISHA GERA BASWANI: POSTCARDS FROM HOME

MANISHA GERA BASWANI

POSTCARDS FROM HOME

1947 and the partition of India

Open now until 12 Mar 2023

Gallery 29

Admission is FREE

New Delhi-based artist Manisha Gera Baswani is a multidisciplinary artist who weaves expressions of painting, photography, sculpture, and writing in her work.

Her exhibition, Postcards from Home, marks the 75th anniversary of India’s partition. It features postcards of 47 artists from India and Pakistan, all with a shared history of the partition of India in 1947.

Each postcard carries an image of a contemporary artist photographed by Baswani, while the reverse of the card carries a poignant memory of that artist reminiscing the ‘home’ lost.

The installation invites the audience to visual and textual frames of nostalgia, to revive a shared connection of a common history, with the South Asian diaspora that arrived in Britain before, during, and after 1947.

A montage showing all 47 postcards on display in the 'Postcards from Home' exhibition

All 47 postcards in the 'Postcards from Home' exhibition. Images © Manisha Gera Baswani

Manisha Gera Baswani was born in 1967 in India to parents of pre-partition India. Her childhood was embellished with stories of her parents reminiscing, with nostalgia and pain, their ‘home‘ in present day Pakistan. Forced to flee overnight, they left everything, including deep friendships nurtured through generations, never to return. This exhibition is Baswani’s homage to her parents’ memories of ‘home’.

Images all © Manisha Gera Baswani

PLAN YOUR VISIT

Param Jit Singh, Palette Gallery, New Delhi 2007

'I was 12 years old when Punjab was divided and the land of my childhood became a foreign country...'

Gargi Raina, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi 2012

'In 2001 I was invited by Salima Hasmi for a Women's Peace Workshop in Lahore. I was able to trace my father Satyendra Kumar's footsteps after 54 years to his childhood home, Fairfields....'

Moeen Faruqi, at his studio, Karachi 2015

'My mother, Maryam Jaffer, grew up in Puna, in a well-to-do Memon business family. She defied her family traditions and got educated... '

Monica Narula in front of her video work, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi 2014

'I don't think I have any distinct memories of living in Pakistan but may be some flashes...'

Ranbir Kaleka, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi 2010

'One foggy winter morning, I saw a colourful garden bloom in the haveli courtyard. As a four-year-old, I looked down from the parapet at the dazzling spectacle. We lived in Bahmana, a village near the ancient city of Samana...'

Navjot Altaf, Talwar Gallery, New Delhi 2013

'My parents lived in Lahore when trouble started brewing in the city. My father’s older brother, Arjun Singh Kalsi, a magistrate in Moga, went to Lahore a few times to try and take my mother and family to safety in Ludhiana — to our ancestral home. She refused...'