Staged Archives: Fictional History

Artist: Maryam Jafri
Discussant: Sharmistha Ray

September 18, 2009 | 6.30 pm
Goethe Hall, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai

Maryam Jafri is an artist whose videos, installations and photo collages often focus on the role of language and memory in the construction of identities, from the individual to the collective. In her video work, in particular, she investigates these areas through a visual language poised between film and theatre and a series of narrative experiments that oscillate between script and document. Jafri is a graduate of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and holds a BA in literature from Brown University. She has participated in numerous solo and group shows in Europe, North America and Asia including Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Kunsthalle Helsinki, Malmo Art Museum (SE), Art Dubai, The Kitchen Art Gallery (NYC), Bodhi Art Gallery (NYC), Contour, 4th Biennial for the Moving Image, Centre d’Arte Passerelle (France), 1st Thessaloniki Biennial, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Centre (GR), and Living Art Museum (IS). She lives and works in New York.

Sharmistha Ray received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Williams College (Williamstown, U.S.A.) and followed it with a dual degree from Pratt Institute – Master of Sciences, in Theory, Criticism and History of Art, Design and Architecture and Master of Fine Arts in Painting. She has written essays, articles and reviews for both Indian and foreign publications including ArtAsiaPacific, Art India, Art Pulse, Gallerie, DNA and MW Magazine. Since 2006, Ray has been Director of Bodhi Art, a leading gallery for Indian Contemporary Art, in Mumbai where she has managed exhibitions by some of India’s leading contemporary artists. Her academic interests focus on migration and diaspora and she continues to write and lecture on the subject including most recently, at the India Art Summit in New Delhi.