Exhibition tells stories of quiet strength
A powerful new exhibition at Arts Centre Washington is shining a light on the often-unheard voices of South Asian women.
Where Were You Last Summer?, created by artists Padma Rao and Sehr Jalil, explores resilience, protest and identity in the wake of last August’s unrest.
Blending personal stories with visual art and archival material, the exhibition brings together deeply emotional narratives of women who have endured and resisted violence - often in quiet, everyday ways.
“After the initial shock of the violence, I started to explore the idea of activism and protest among South Asian women,” said Padma. “I realised you don’t have to be on the streets to be protesting and that there are daily acts of activism that women can – and do – perform.
“You don’t often see South Asian women on the frontlines of protests, but that’s not to say they aren’t activists. There’s a history of South Asian women being part of the suffragette movement and anti-racist movement in Britain.”
Padma, based in Sunderland, worked closely with Bangladeshi communities on Wearside and South Tyneside, as well as with organisations like Sangini. “There were so many stories of resilience, of how women fled violence and abuse and how they’ve coped. I brought these stories and narratives into my work.
“In the wake of the riots, when our women were attacked and frightened, we had to go into rescue and repair mode,” she continued.
“There was much to be done immediately. We had to put our emotions to one side to help and support. But now we’ve had opportunity to pause and reflect and my artwork was produced during this time, when I’ve been able to reconnect and interpret what we’d seen and understood, giving a new language to my work.”
Curated by Delhi-based Manmeet Kaur Walia, the exhibition also marks a cross-border collaboration between Padma and Sehr, a Pakistani artist and researcher.
“Sehr is from Pakistan and the fact that we’re all working so well together is evidence of how you can set geo-politics to one side and see ordinary people getting on together and working together,” said Padma.
Sehr’s work draws on personal and familial archives to reflect on identity and memory.
She said: “I work with memory, archives, and postcolonial identity politics – familial archives which inescapably seep into ‘the institutional, national or political, and vice versa.
“The possibility of this exhibition arrived as a chance for engaging with Padma to excavate, understand or probe parallel and colliding notions on race, identity and what it means to be South Asian and of the sub-continent origin beyond the Western gaze and theoretical assumptions and judgements.
“It also offers a chance to unpack the nuance of cross-border, post-partition, ‘diaspora or locale’, ‘virtual and in-person’, entanglements and tensions in the geographical landscape between London and Sunderland.”
The result promises an intimate and moving inquiry into history, connection and healing.
Where Were You Last Summer? runs at Arts Centre Washington until August 30. Entry is free.