Amar Kanwar's extensive project on the social struggles and expropriation issues which take place in the land of Odisha in east India (in collaboration with Sudhir Pattnaik / Samadrusti and Sherna Dastur).
This catalogue is an extension of an ongoing research and exhibition project that TBA21 has supported since its inception in 2006. The Sovereign Forest renders visible and collects evidence of what has hitherto been hidden and suppressed within the site of a “modern war,” in which industrial interventions have reshaped and permanently destroyed parts of the landscape of the Indian state of Odisha for over a decade, leaving villagers in suffering and devastation. The ambitious catalogue attempts to reopen and deepen discussions posed by the exhibition by bringing together a variety of voices from academic and activist backgrounds, factual and intimate narratives and interviews, image documentation, and additional documents. Equally, these complex and varied narratives help to unfold a multiplicity of different knowledges and testimonies on this obscured and intricate conflict.
Published following the eponymous exhibition at TBA21, Wien, from November 2013 to March 2014.
Amar Kanwar (born 1964, lives and works in New Delhi) is a Indian artist and documentary filmmaker. He has participated in Documenta 11, 12, 13 (2002, 2007, 2012), and has had retrospectives at numerous international film festivals. He was awarded at the Vatavaran International Environment Film Festival, New Delhi, India (2012) and was delivered an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from the Maine College of Art, Portland, Maine (2006). Amar Kanwar has exhibited internationally at such institutions as the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich (2012), the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2008) and the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2007).
