SHOWS

CAPITAL LETTERS
A DIGITAL ART INSTALLATION BASED ON LETTERS FROM DEATH ROW, INDIA
Created by Team reFrame. Commissioned by Project 39A, National Law University Delhi.

We hear about the death penalty mostly in the context of terror crimes, multiple murders, or sexual assaults that horrify us, and assume that capital punishment must be reserved for the most heinous, the rarest of the rare cases. But, in fact, across the country, 1 person is sentenced to death every 2.5 days. And there's almost nothing we know about any of them.

CAPITAL LETTERS is an attempt to unlock our minds and meet some of these people. To get a glimpse, through their letters, and our interpretive art, to of what it is like to live in that dark space where death is the only certainty.

With physical objects and elements that invite hands-on interaction as well as digital works that provoke thought and introspection, Capital Letters works in the interstices of media, words, images and silences, so we may hear the voices on those on death row. Loud and clear.

Project lead: Vani Subramanian

Creative team: Vani Subramanian, Ridhima Mehra, Tulika Srivastava, Neeharika Sreedhar, Nidhi Kol

Technical team: Desmond Roberts, Varun Sharma, AV Graphix, Ashish Paliwal

2023

HUM SAB NIZAMUDDIN
A POP UP MUSEUM OF NEIGHBOURHOOD MEMORY
Commissioned by Centre For Community Knowledge, Ambedkar University Delhi

An oral history project of the neighbourhoods of Nizamuddin in New Delhi. From an 800 year old settlement to colonies born with an independent new nation, its historical sites, private homes and spiritual sanctuaries are the sites of peoples' memories and narratives. As we roam the lanes, bylanes, parks, markets and roundabouts of Nizamuddin with them and hear their stories, we discover some resonance with our own.

Manifested as an open tented exhibition featuring video films, slide shows, textual panels, an interactive game and other personal objects. The exhibition was complemented by multiple public events including conversations, screenings, and performances centred around the art, history, culture and people of Nizamuddin.

Concept: Surajit Sarkar

Project lead: Vani Subramanian

Research and Creative team: Vani Subramanian, Nidhi Kol, Gopika Chowfla, Satnam Kaur, Harmanpreet Kaur, Archit Nanda, Kumar Unnayan

Exhibition sites: The old Badminton Court, Nizamuddin East and the MCD School, Nizamuddin Basti

2015

VIEW SHORT FILM

OPA | CITY
GENDER. SPACE. INTERSECTIONS. A MIXED MEDIA INSTALLATION
Supported by the Fulbright Fellowship, 2012

The gendered body is an opaque presence. Sometimes belonging, sometimes owning. Always aware, always strategizing. Often framing and, even more often, being framed by the spaces it inhabits, in permanence, or in passing. Spaces imagined by convention, inscribed with sexuality, activated by memory and located at the intersection of image and image-making.

The installation, created by an interplay of video, audio, text, objects, live projection, shadows and reflections, offers an immersive, visceral experience of inhabiting multiple spaces within the work, irrespective of whether it is in a studio gallery, the corridors of a building or even an open air public space.

Concept, creative and production: Vani Subramanian

Exhibition sites:

Milstein Hall, Cornell University, NY

Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Bengaluru

Goethe Institute, New Delhi

Studio X, Mumbai

Eklavya, Hoshangabad

Gandhi Bhavan, Bhopal

2013-2015