Metaphors For Land
Curated by Shristi Sainani
11th Jan.- 11th March, 2024
Land as
plenty, sometimes scarce.
foreign and it, as vernacular.
Grasslands, plateaus, peaks of hills, trenched valleys,
coasts that border edges at which the sea kisses the earth.
Land as,
abundance and wealth.
labour, a place of toil.
Land where the farmer works finger to the bone.
Land as a yearn for sailors who parted ways.
Land as,
mud, with worms that churn bits of soil, assisting sprouting blooms.
resting ground, for a child who aced a lengthy sprint.
fertile clay, a gift to a potter who moulds porcelain kept ready for the burning kiln
deemed for gods and kings.
Land as,
terra firma, a refusal to budge.
terra incognita, a cartographers dream left unmapped.
terra nullius, ‘no man’s land’, unrightfully occupied.
Land as,
a prayer of the natives.
a memorial for ancestors.
a burial ground, where a tombstone in concrete has initials engraved.
Land as,
a chance of war, a sense of security.
a necessity, a refuge, a metaphor.
With one hundred and more metaphors, land is seen in different lights by archeologists, historians, economists, surveyors, nationalists, citizens, makers of maps, laws, films and zines. From a call for a promised land by Agha Shahid Ali, to Das Gupta and Sekhar Basu’s study on community through the lens of migration, liberalisation and globalisation — land has been examined and interpreted in multiple ways to dissect the complexities that come alongside ideas around territory.
APRE Art House is pleased to present Metaphors for Land, an exhibition that assesses and grapples with definitions of land and subsidiary intensities that inevitably seep in. There is a need to fragment ideas around physical, emotional, mental and spiritual labour ingrained while interrogating these metaphors.
Artists: