The Torn First Pages

Fecha: 2008
Medio: 19-channel video installation (b/w and color, sound), aluminum frames, 19 sheets of paper, steel tables, books
Dimensión: 38 min (videos) Overall dimensions variable
Crédito: Co-commissioned by TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and Public Press, New Delhi
TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection; Esta obra de arte forma parte de la donación y el préstamo a largo plazo de TBA21 al Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Detalles

The Torn First Pages is a three-part installation on the political and humanitarian situation in Burma (Myanmar), which consists of a 19-channel video installation. For this piece, Kanwar drew inspiration from the story of a book-dealer in Mandalay who was imprisoned for tearing out the first page of every book. These pages bore odes to the military regime and taunts addressed to the democratic movement in Myanmar.

The Torn First Pages is also an ode to the thousands engaged in the struggle for democracy in Burma. The films directly, elliptically and metaphorically encounter resistance and the struggle for a democratic society, contemporary forms of non-violence, political exile, memory and dislocation.

The videos from part one of The Torn First Pages are: The Face, Thet Win Aung (a&b), Ma Win Maw Oo, The Bodhi Tree and Somewhere in May. The various parts are based to some extent on film and video material shot clandestinely in Burma. Kanwar was in contact with the Burmese resistance movement and trained ‘amateurs’ to shoot footage surreptitiously for inclusion in his work. Some of the material, however, was shot outside Burma in India, Europe, the US and Thailand. In The Face we see footage of general Than Swe, head of the Burmese junta who, in 2004, visited Rajghat, the site of Gandhi’s cremation. Swe’s visit was extremely controversial. The general is known for being very particular about his media representation but Kanwar managed to video Swe as he scattered rose petals at the hallowed place.

The installation’s second part is devoted to interviews with members of a Burmese community in Fort Wayne, Ind., one of whom tracks down the émigré poet Tin Moe (1933-2007), a prison survivor. The third part is archival, with films secretly made in Myanmar of pro-democracy demonstrations. In one astonishing sequence, thousands of red-robed Buddhist monks fill city streets in silent protest.

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Part I Six projections, Sound./Silent

The set The Bodhi Tree, 2005 Video, Colour, Sound, 7' 4'',

The Face, 2005 Video, Colour, Sound, 4' 35'',

Thet Win Aung, 2005 (a & b) Video, B&W, Silent, English subtitle, 4' 35'',

The diptych Ma Win Maw Oo, 2005 Video, Colour, Silent, 4' 35'',

Somewhere in May, 2005 Video, Colour Sound, 37'', English subtitle

Part II Seven projections, Sound, 24' 53''

Part III Six projections: 3 Silent and 3 with Sound 23' 26''