We change each other is a newly commissioned, monumental light installation by Shilpa Gupta. The work will be installed at Logårdstrappan in Skeppsbron, and thereafter will be permanently placed at the new police station in Rinkeby in Stockholm.
We change each other is a thought-provoking creation that delves on questions of unity and amalgamation of cultures, signifying the inevitable mutation and dispersion that follows when two beings or cultures come into contact with each other.
Shilpa Gupta explores the flux within inter-personal spaces, be it between two people, intergenerational or those shaped by religious, political or gender divides. With her poetic use of language, translating the phrase ‘We change each other’ into Swedish, Sami, and Arabic, the artist highlights historical and current fault-lines, and the hegemonic role of language. In an increasingly polarising world witnessing mass migrations, only one of the interwoven languages lights up at a time, reminding the viewers to look at the ‘Other’.
Installationen är framtagen på uppdrag av Statens konstråd. Verket visades vid Logårdstrappan på Skeppsbron i Stockholm under Kulturfestivalen i augusti. Därefter får den sin slutliga placering vid en ny polisstation i Rinkeby utanför Stockholm.
On Shilpa Gupta
Shilpa Gupta is an artist from Mumbai born 1976. She received a BFA in sculpture from the Sir J. J. School of Fine Arts, Mumbai, in 1997. Gupta is interested in perception, and in the ways in which we transmit and understand information. Her mediums range from manipulated found objects to video, interactive computer-based installation, and performance. Her work often engages with television and its constant flow of meaning. Shifting the primary status of art from object-based commodity to participatory experience, Gupta creates situations that actively involve the viewer.
Recent solo exhibitions are Altered Inheritances: Home is a Foreign Place, a two person solo with Zarina Hashmi Ishara at Art Foundation, Alserkal Avenue (Dubai), While I Begin, 2018 at Voorlinden Museum and Gardens (Wassenaar), For, in your tongue I cannot fit, 2018 Yarat Contemporary Art Center (Baku) and Shilpa Gupta at Galeria Continua (Sangigimano).