2022 Common Ground, Compton Verney, UK
Reena Kallat is a contemporary artist whose work considers divisions and connections between land and people. Her practice encompasses drawing, photography, sculpture and video. Born in Delhi in 1973, Kallat’s paternal family experienced dislocation during the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent, and much of her work interrogates important ideas of nationhood, migration and equity.
In the largest exhibition of her work in the UK to date, humankind’s imprint on nature emerges as one of several critical themes: the pieces on display fusing collective memory with human and physical geography. Within many works electric cables, twisted to resemble barbed wire, become symbolic of our divided yet connected world. Elsewhere rubber stamps, eye charts, maps and constitutional texts are used to demonstrate the plight of the individual within the paraphernalia of the State, and the urgent need for a shared vision to create common ground.