Presenting Pastness
15 – 23 April,
Art Outreach, Gillman Barracks,
Singapore
2023
Project Description
“Presenting Pastness” is a solo exhibition that features Zoya’s delicately crafted cut-out works and an installation.
Details
Our memories of the past are not only from lived experiences but are also dominated by media information. The cut-out works in the exhibition refer to the fragile outcome of the works as a testament to the fragility of the juxtaposition of time, space, and fleeting emotions. The objects presented are a result of Zoya’s reflections during COVID restrictions in Singapore, as an emotive negotiation in relation to collected newsprint paper of that time. Exploring her personal filters and thinking about ruins, she drew inspiration from latticed ‘Jali’ screens, a historical architectural feature from India, to cut out geometric shapes through which the perception of the real and recorded may be filtered or fragmented. Using a combination of hand cutting, laser cutting, burning, scratching, and painting the surface of newspapers (pasted on canvas) from specific dates, Zoya explores the notion of ‘media as material’. This considers news media as a referent to past events that are under erasure in their representational form, drawing attention to their materiality.