In February 2019, the Gujral Foundation in New Delhi presented a solo exhibition by Indian multidisciplinary artist Astha Buthail, winner of the 2017 Hong Kong edition of the BMW Art Journey. Curated by Reha Sodhi, and titled “In the Absence of Writing”, the show was a collateral event of this year’s India Art Fair. The Foundation featured works, including new commissions, resulting from the artist’s year-long research into memory and living traditions passed on through teachings and oral poetry, with a focus on Zoroastrian Avesta, the Jewish Oral Torah and Indian Vedic philosophy. Ashta Butail (b. 1977, Amristar) received the BMW Art Journey award to fund her research and create her new series of work, for which she travelled through Yazd in Iran, Jerusalem in Israel, London in the United Kingdom, and Varanasi, Pune, New Delhi and Mumbai in her native India.
Astha Butail developed an interest in studying different systems of culture in 2009, when she also started learning Sanskrit and memorising a collection of hymns from the Rig Veda (fragments of which are used as titles for her work in this series). She then began to wonder about how the passing of knowledge between generations worked and she thought of conducting a comparative research into the living oral traditions of different cultures. The artist has described her project as “a homage to the intangible oral traditions that are still alive today”. She has also recently revealed that contrary to common understanding, these traditions are not just religious ones:
People tend to think that these traditions are primarily about religion, but they are primarily about the ecology. Knowledge of ecological systems is passed on through all the oral knowledge systems that I studied. For example, they all have a water prayer or ritual.
She reflected this idea in the show with a copper wire pipe running trough the exhibition space. The biggest differences between oral traditions are in the sounds and hymns, which form the key elements composing her new multimedia work, including audio clips, geometric sculptures and interactive installations. And secrets are secrets invites viewers to respond to previous entries in handmade diaries placed on bookshelves by writing or drawing their self-portrait, creating an open book without a beginning or an end.
The three sound installations Stir a Miracle illustrate how sound and utterance are the foundations of language and oral traditions. Stir a miracle 1, a collection of vowel sounds extracted from recordings during Butail’s travels, shows how different pronunciations of vowel sounds influence the meaning of words. Stir a miracle 2 and 3 feature sounds of children crying and laughing respectively. Together, the three sound works address the shared origins of some of the world’s oldest languages.
The sculpture Forever – Embedded Memory, made up of parts of musical wind instruments, invokes an intense memory of sound through its absence, as the instruments cannot be played. Their fragments recall the inconsistencies that result from oral transmission over centuries. In the exhibition the artist also screened clips from her journey in the video installation Of a flux of hopes, providing an immersive experience of her research. During her travels, Butail carried around a tent made of wood, muslin and gauze, which provided a space where she interacted with people who came to perform and share their oral traditions with her. The Iran tent featured in the videos was presented in the exhibition space.
It dissolves perfection – Mobile Immobile is an interactive installation composed of sixty identical frames, each with a unique disc that viewers can interact with. The thin black lines on the circular discs allude to the hands of a clock — each representing one minute and together forming an hour. These lines are aligned perfectly at the outset, but their perfection is dissolved when a viewer chooses a random minute from an hour to set in motion.
Knowledge is often memorised and transferred using mathematical patterns, and Butail incorporates these algorithms by using geometry and exploring how different composite elements of an entity relate to its whole. Using video, sound, sculpture and interactive installation, she offers glimpses into the architecture of collective memory, to respond to the notions of space and time, values and culture, history and identity.
The show’s curator said about her work:
In ancient traditions, memory and knowledge were often transferred using the basis of mathematics and algorithms, Astha Butail’s practice responds to this by incorporating geometry to explore ways in which composite elements relate to a whole. In a fast-paced, technology-driven world, Butail reconnects us to worlds in which traditions and ideas are still shared slowly, through deeper interpersonal connections.
“In the Absence of Writing” by Astha Butail ran from 2 to 28 February 2019 at The Gujral Foundation, 24 Jor Bagh, New Delhi, India.