Helsinki

Shubhangi Singh: Birth of a Grenade (2024)

Shubhangi Singh: Birth of a Grenade (2024)

Jan

17

Fri

12:00 – 17:00

-4–-2°C

mist

For over a hundred years, when the East India Company ships brought barrels of saltpetre to the shores of England, they also brought with them a force that determined how we move in the world today.

Saltpetre, also known by its chemical name, Potassium Nitrate (KNO3) was a coveted global commodity that was mined, traded and fought over for its role in the production of gunpowder by competing colonial powers. An advantage over this material not only meant dominance over land but also over the sea trade.

Around the period that saltpetre was being honed for its use in sophisticating militarisation, the development of potassium nitrate splintered into other purposes such as in the production of fertilisers for the soil—descendants of which are commonly used in most present day greenhouses and conservatories across Europe.

In the presence of the displaced plant habitat in the greenhouse, Birth of a Grenade responds to the multi species colonial violence by drawing connections between the raw materials and their applications in creating the by-products that are eternally constructing and destructing, building up while simultaneously breaking down.

The film playing on a loop performs the alternating role of grieving, anticipating and raging. It exists within these contradictions only to be further exaggerated through the performance of many multiplicities within the work.

Shubhangi Singh is a transdisciplinary artist whose practice draws from existing knowledges to address movement, identity, queries related to the body and its relationship with the environment. Singh considers ideas of absence and absenting in her work as a way of reflecting upon what isvisible, particularly in relation to history, memory and the labour of memorialising. Working across media, from text to moving image and site-specific installations, Singh’s works are routinely suspended between fiction and non-fiction, often adopting the position of an unreliable narrator.

Singh holds a Master’s degree in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art from Aalto University and is the co-founder of New City Limits, an initiative to facilitate creative viewing and practice in Navi Mumbai, India. She currently lives and works in Helsinki.

Fri 17 Jan 2025 – 09 Feb 2025 12:00 – 17:00

-4–-2°C

mist

Address:
Ruoholahdenranta 3a
Helsinki, Finland