Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi is pleased to announce the opening of ‘Times, Lines, 1989s’ – an exhibition by the Russian art collective Chto Delat. The exhibition opens at 6:30pm, on the 29th of January, 2020 at Khoj Studios.
The need for telling alternate histories has never been more urgent than today. It is in this spirit of exploring non-linear histories and the manner in which they circulate that Khoj invited Chto Delat to host their exhibition here. This exhibition is a collateral event of the India Art Fair which runs from 30 January to 02 February, 2020.
‘Times, Lines, 1989s’ plays with both the productive and problematic outcomes of attempting to revisit or retell history by utilizing the concept of a ‘timeline’ as a provocation to think about who tells history, and the manner in which history circulates. The exhibition explores how people register themselves in relation to recent history, examining how to build alternative historical narratives collectively. Questions and politics is at the forefront of the Collective’s work, which believes that if political and social transformation is to be made possible, we need to consciously understand the forces of transformation and their effects. The aim is to create new citations and stories which build a discourse on alternate futures and how to refuse existing narratives. The exhibition will consist of film works, texts, prints and textiles, which connect to activist struggles and places of culture. Their skeleton timeline surrounds these words, charting the multiple and interconnected histories from the last thirty years.
A key part of the space is a History Production Station – an ongoing performative workshop space that provides tools for challenging accepted histories, authority and linear experience. This is one of the mechanisms by which people are encouraged to contribute their own timelines to the main project.
Chto Delat (What is to be done?) is a collective of artists, critics, philosophers and writers that founded in 2003 in St. Petersburg in order to integrate political theory, art and activism. It organizes art projects, seminars and public campaigns that can take the form of videos, plays, radio programmes, posters and murals.
The exhibition will open on January 29, 2020 and will run through till February 29, 2020. The gallery will be open from 11am – 7pm, except on Sundays and public holidays.
*This page is available as a downloadable accessibility document.