Sarah Okay. Khan’s exhibition on the BRIC, combining ceramics, printmaking, video, digital animation, and textual content, dives into histories of colonialism, international migration, maritime commerce, foodways, cartography, unruly ladies within the African, Arab, and Asian worlds, up to date diasporas, and far else. If that seems like lots, it’s — partly as a result of these concepts are so capacious that every one spills over into the following.
A collection of linocuts titled Undisciplined Pleasures, Vigilant Defiance are based mostly on a Fifteenth-century Persian illustrated manuscript, Kitab Ni’matnama-i Nashirshahi (Nasir Shah’s E book of Delights), a compendium of the scrumptious meals loved by the courtroom of the Sultan of Malwa in present-day northwest India. Courting from the pre-Mughal period, the manuscript displays a full of life cultural change between Africa and West, Central, and South Asia that far predated the European age of exploration and colonialism — a worthy topic for a present that’s, in its approach, an ode to lengthy legacies of immigration and cultural encounter.
Sarah Okay. Khan, “Undisciplined Pleasures: Razia Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate (Black Pepper, Cinnamon, Clove)” (2020), printed on handmade Wasli paper, on an etching press, infused the etching ink and important oils and extracts (picture Aruna D’Souza/Hyperallergic)
Khan distills and expands the unique illustrations, eradicating the lads who’re being served and focusing as an alternative on the ladies doing the serving. She inserts historic figures, too, together with Queen Bilqis, also referred to as the Queen of Sheba; Razia Sultan, a uncommon feminine ruler in Thirteenth-century Delhi; Weyzero Abebach, an Ethiopian girl who resisted Italian fascism within the Thirties; the Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut; and the Iranian-born graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi. The prints are surrounded by porcelain objects: Lugers, swords, scimitars, rolling pins, pencils in a cup — weapons of destruction and instruments of creation (generally each directly).
Within the middle of the area is an array of porcelain serving dishes that recall the blue and white pottery well-known all through Western, Central, and South Asia for the reason that ninth century, in addition to different brightly coloured plates, bowls, and utensils. A few of these depict completely different spices traded alongside the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea coastlines (nutmeg, cloves, pepper, and so forth.), every with their names rendered in a number of languages, dislocating the Eurocentrism of their present appellations. On the again wall, a tiled panel reveals a trio of dhows navigating uneven waters, whereas an ostentation of ceramic peacocks climbs the wall in a spiral, and two digital animations based mostly on motifs from the manuscript swirl and morph.
This can be a challenge that has grown out of years of archival analysis, and you may get the sense that the artist is an educator at coronary heart; the in depth wall texts spell out the numerous historic and visible connections within the present. However often this implies the viewer is left little or no area for discovery — ironic, given the emphasis within the present on what blossoms within the act of encounter. A five-paragraph label for a gaggle of porcelain dishes reads partly, “This piece encourages generative discussions on race and ethnicity via the lens of migration — the movement of people, plants, and ideas.” It’s a pity that is spelled out so explicitly. Given the prospect, I think viewers — particularly these of us who’re immigrants — may have skilled the enjoyment of coming to these understandings on our personal, by the visible pleasures supplied up by the work itself.
Set up view of porcelain serving dishes and tiles by Sarah Okay. Khan in Communicate, Sing, Shout: We, Too, Sing America at BRIC, Brooklyn (picture Aruna D’Souza/Hyperallergic)
Set up view of etchings with ink infused with important oils and porcelain objects by Sarah Okay. Khan in Communicate, Sing, Shout: We, Too, Sing America at BRIC, Brooklyn (picture Sebastian Bach)
Shut-up view of porcelain Luger pistols in Sarah Okay. Khan: Communicate, Sing, Shout: We, Too, Sing America at BRIC, Brooklyn (picture Aruna D’Souza/Hyperallergic)
Set up view of glazed porcelain cleavers in Sarah Okay. Khan: Communicate, Sing, Shout: We, Too, Sing America at BRIC, Brooklyn (picture Sebastian Bach)
Set up view of Sarah Okay. Khan: Communicate, Sing, Shout: We, Too, Sing America at BRIC, Brooklyn (picture Sebastian Bach)
Sarah Okay. Khan: Communicate, Sing, Shout: We, Too, Sing America continues at BRIC (647 Fulton Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn) by December 23. The exhibition is a part of the collection What Can Grow to be of Us, a collaboration between Stanford Institute for Advancing Simply Societies and Zócalo Public Sq..
