bird, Sonia Khurana

Exhibition Label:
"Corpus," Apr-2012, Kris Ercums
Shortly after Sonia Khurana returned to India after completing an MA at the Royal College of Art, London she included Bird in a solo exhibition in early 2000. The video immediately caused a sensation. At the time, her unabashed use of her naked body in the work was extremely unconventional in India. The work immediately signalled a new direction for contemporary art in India, and has since become an iconic piece of contemporary art by women in the subcontinent.

For Khurana this short film is about the “enclosing nature of self-image and the inarticulateness of the body.” Deploying a remote, hand-held camera (watch for the remote in her hand) she captures the “body” within her solitary studio. The silent, black-and-white, metallic ballet explores the hope and limitations of the body. Her attempts to make the body fly, and the resulting emotional outpouring balances the work on a tender border of tragedy and comedy.