Room with a view at Growing Like A Tree — Sent A Letter exhibition.

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts, Goa, India, in partnership with the Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, is currently presenting Growing Like A Tree: Sent A Letter, a curatorial debut by Bunu Dhungana and Sadia Marium Rupa (Dec. 6 – April 22, 2023). A pioneering initiative that advances new and cutting edge art practices from South Asia and beyond, the collaboration between the two organisations provides a unique opportunity to witness path-breaking curatorial directions in the field of contemporary art within the subcontinent.

Growing Like A Tree: Sent A Letter is hosted with the curatorial guidance and exhibition design provided by artist Sohrab Hura. The venue is Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts, Goa, India. It marks the third iteration of the exhibition initially curated by Hura at Ishara in Dubai in 2021; the show expands on Hura’s collective journeys with practitioners across geographic borders.

The exposition in Goa furthers Ishara’s and Sunaparanta’s commitment to supporting the burgeoning art scene from the region, both locally and internationally. Growing Like A Tree: Sent A Letter comprises of photography, artist-books, texts, films, video and sound installations that reflect the complex and imbricated histories of South Asia and the world.

Bringing together new and previously presented works, the curation pushes the boundaries of contemporary image-making as modes of address that offer a changing map of interconnected practices. The title of the exhibition is inspired from Indian photographer Dayanita Singh’s work Sent A Letter (2007) that was exhibited as a citation in the first iteration of the show.

 A composition presented at the exhibition.

Expanding on the idea that an unopened photo-book can enfold within it diaries, exhibitions and correspondences, the exhibition returns to this source to evoke the tactile act of composing letters.It gathers images and sounds as dispatches from artistic journeys across different contexts, highlighting the shared moments of nurture, growth, decay, pollination and memory-making. As described by the curators, “we find a paper, pen and envelope. We address, we pause and sometimes write many drafts until we find our expression.

Not every letter is destined to make its way to the intended receiver. “Some remain undelivered, some are lost along the way and others only reach their destination after an unanticipated lag in time while the world around them has completely changed.” Carrying on the curatorial methodology from the past, the exhibition, as a result, is rendered as a site of continuous transformations. At Sunaparanta, new voices fade in while existing ones linger on as residues, and others fade out into silence.

Different practices are assembled as clusters, nodes, signals and notations connected through echo-locations and synapses. Jarring metallic sounds, flickering heartbeats, whooshing of blood and stormy seas form the sensorial landscape of the show that has travelled from one port city of Dubai to the next in Goa. Seen together, they convey the fragile yet resilient network of interdependence shared among artists.

The ensemble of artists and collectives in the exhibition includes Aishwarya Arumbakkam, Vinita Barretto, Uma Bista, Dolly Devi, Shaheen Dill-Riaz, Pooja Gurung & Bibhusan Basnet, Alana Hunt, Ipshita Maitra, Farah Mulla, Nida Mehboob, Jaisingh Nageswaran, Ali Monis Naqvi, Gaurang Naik, Sarker Protick, Sathish Kumar, The Packet, Priyadarshini Ravichandran, Rajee Samarasinghe, Suneil Sanzgiri, Sylvia Schedelbauer, Prasiit Sthapit, Maryam Tafakory, Avani Tanya and Zainab, along with a citation of Dayanita Singh’s Sent A Letter.

With site-specific notations by Hura, his role as a curator tunes out with the third iteration inviting new curatorial voices that proliferate the growing of the tree into a forest. Smita Prabhakar, Founder and Chairperson, Ishara Art Foundation, said that “Ishara Art Foundation and Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts’ joint presentation of ‘Growing like a Tree’, iteration 3 is a moment of great pride for both organisations.

“Once again our efforts will showcase young talent who are creative and will prove the place and importance of photography in the visual arts.” Isheta Salgaocar, Patron, Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts, said that “this third iteration of the show brings to Goa a visual archaeology of networks, practices and thoughts. As roots sprout on new terrain, the works both entangle and scatter. With each convergence and refraction, new sparks and directions emerge.

“Through their interconnection, they reflect off each other, add layers of meaning and dialogues. On fertile ground, they cross-pollinate and through their intimacy, allow for new strands and narratives to unfold.” Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts was founded in 2009 as a not-for-profit, process-based arts foundation by Dipti and Dattaraj V. Salgaocar – today with the patronage of Isheta Salgaocar – with the vision to nurture, promote and encourage growth of the cultural ecosystem in the State of Goa and India at large.

It was started with the aim to preserve the artistic and creative legacies of Goa, to encourage and promote innovative work in the visual arts, to serve as a bridge between the Goan art community and the national and international art communities. It is a leading cultural body dedicated to building sustainable partnerships in the region, nation and globally to promote cultural innovation and to develop the creative industries.

Ishara Art Foundation was founded in 2019 as a non-profit organisation dedicated to presenting contemporary art of South Asia. Located in Dubai, the foundation supports emerging and established artists that champion critical dialogue and explore global interconnections. The Foundation is presented in partnership with Alserkal.