Vinoja’s small-scale pieces reflecting shared memories, conversations of conflict
View(s):
‘Contours of a Breathing Land ‘, the work of T. Vinoja, will be on view at Solaivanam Guest House, Kilinochchi, from August 9 to 17.
This exhibition held in the artist’s home region, Kilinochchi, brings together recent projects composed for the Sharjah Biennial 16 titled ‘to carry’ and her postgraduation exhibition at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore.
The artist registers how alienation and rupture of the domestic sphere interrupted her childhood years, which included separation from her grandmother and fleeing by sea to find refuge in Southern India. Her small-scale pieces made with needlework, acrylic and found materials including items of clothing, reflect a responsive aesthetic of portability and crafting within realms of urgency. They bear the demarcations of escape routes, tents, barbed wire, scars of land mines, check points, and artillery shelling – represented in dense patterning, dots, lines and topographical mappings -scripted from memory, field recordings, and conversations among Tamil elders, former neighbours, humanitarian activists, and disabled youth across the Northern peninsula.
This project is held in partnership with Experimenter (Kolkata / Mumbai) and the local partner Kälam (Jaffna).
Vinoja has been committed to listening as a strength-giving practice. She speaks of “creating temporary communities in ever-shifting landscapes of displacement” shaped by sharing of scarce resources among strangers, while shielding and being shielded among thousands of bunkers.
Inspired by Kolam, geometric floor drawings traditionally made from rice flour in Sri Lanka and Southern India, Vinoja builds on an inherited lexicon as fields of shared witnessing. The choice of colour tones including use of natural dyes resonates with territories such as Chundikkulam Lagoon and the Vanni’s densely forested areas. Moving below ground, Vinoja frequently returns to the bunker “as both physical and psychological space that is a fragile refuge shaped by conflict and care.”
- Natasha Ginwala
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