What is Dima Srouji's art about at the Kochi Biennale?

Dima Srouji's installations at the Kochi Biennale explore themes of memory, displacement, erasure, and resilience, particularly in relation to Palestine.

What do the 'Watchhouses' at the Kochi Biennale symbolize?

The watchhouse structures symbolize shelter, safety, decompression, and quiet resistance amidst accelerated living and ecological breakdown.

How does 'Air of Firozabad/Air of Palestine' represent persistence?

The installation uses delicate glass baubles to symbolize persistence and survival, especially when fundamental rights over land and life are contested.

Home / Arts and Entertainment / Fragile Art, Defiant Voices: Kochi Biennale

Fragile Art, Defiant Voices: Kochi Biennale

13 Dec

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Summary

Installations explore themes of memory, displacement, and erasure.
Glass baubles represent persistence amidst contested rights.
Watchhouses offer shelter and contemplation amid crises.

Fragile Art, Defiant Voices: Kochi Biennale

Palestinian artist Dima Srouji and curator Piero Tomassoni unveil installations at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, exploring themes of memory, displacement, and erasure. Their works, "Air of Firozabad/Air of Palestine" and "Time Reclaiming Structures: Watchhouses," confront the slow violence of heritage loss and the resilience of existence.

"Air of Firozabad/Air of Palestine" features hundreds of transparent glass baubles suspended delicately, each a testament to persistence. Hand-blown in Palestine and Firozabad, India, they capture light, symbolizing survival amidst contested fundamental rights and precarious conditions.

"Time Reclaiming Structures: Watchhouses" presents miniature steel structures on stilts across a garden. These forms, resembling shelters and watchtowers, offer spaces for decompression and contemplation, reflecting Srouji's childhood experiences with conflict and the universal need for safety.