Shahzia Sikander
Reckoning, 2020
HD video animation with sound; Music by Du Yun featuring Zeb Bangash; Animation by Patrick O'Rourke
duration: 4 min 16 sec
Edition of 7 plus 2 AP
Copyright The Artist
Further images
This film, made from multiple drawings, reveals the cyclical theme of struggle through kinetic forms. Reflecting upon relationships that embody a moment of reckoning, such as between migrant and citizen,...
This film, made from multiple drawings, reveals the cyclical theme of struggle through kinetic forms. Reflecting upon relationships that embody a moment of reckoning, such as between migrant and citizen, women and power, human and nature, Sikander culls a dramatic sequence of events in her restaging of an imaginary historical Indo-Persian-Turkish painting. The film begins with a female face composed of millions of particles, descending and initiating a rite of passage. This process of expulsion and expansion is carried further via an iconography of a joust, where two warriors are linked to each other in a complex dance of metamorphosis. The human connection to the particles of dust and light is a testament to the numinous nature that can sustain or extinguish human life. The moving, morphing, flowering land emphasizes that earth is not an inert entity where the invisible and the visible world are both animated through the presence of life and death. The lyrics, sung in Turkish by Zeb Bangash, refer to the sensuous world and its enveloping nature, a quest for the unknown and the inherent existential underpinning of human existence.
Exhibitions
2022-2023: Shahzia Sikander: Radiant Dissonance, Seal Kelly Gallery, Los Angeles (19 November 2022 - & January 2023)2021: Infinite Woman, Pilar Corrias, London (12/10/21 - 13/11/21)
2023: Shahzia Sikander: Havah... to breathe, air, life, Sean Kelly, Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York, NY (January 17 - June 4)