The Long Partition

Mulji, Huma

Abstract

Curators Note: Huma Mulji’s proposal consists of nine trompe l’oeil paintings of cassette tapes used by her mother to correspond with her closest female relatives. Each cassette carries an oral epistle, a Derridean “sendoff” pining for a reply, a lonely monologue that represents one side of a desired dialogue delayed by distance. Annotated with brief handwritten recollections—that capture the heartache of displacement and separation, and visually repeat the scribbled and crossed out descriptions on the cassette labels—each painting is assigned a city name. From homes left behind like Bombay, Calcutta, and Chittagong to Karachi, where the family resettled, and then on to cities across the Gulf, Iran, and further West in search of livelihoods, these names catalogue an ongoing itinerary of dislocation and migration inaugurated by the tumult of Partition. Despite Mulji’s attempted veracity, indexed by the test palette on each drawing, the diffused aqueous contours of watercolor echo the grain of the voices recorded on these tapes, which hold the textures and memories of the past. The watercolors are accompanied by an audio collage compiled from these tapes titled The Long Partition, after Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar’s prompt to rethink Partition not as a momentary rupture but an ongoing process unfolding across decades. Snippets of the monologues are mixed in with songs, while in the background we hear the familiar sounds of life continuing unabated, despite distance: the reassuring whir of the once ubiquitous ceiling fan; a jarring telephone ring; the sounds of children shuffling, impatiently interrupting, reluctantly performing, growin

Citation

Mulji, H. The Long Partition. [Watercolour on paper, audio score]. Exhibited at Philadelphia, USA. 3 July 2023 - 2 October 2023. (Unpublished)

• Exhibition Performance Type: Exhibition
• Start Date: Jul 3, 2023
• End Date: Oct 2, 2023
• Deposit Date: Aug 1, 2023
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10995213