projects - Sharjah Art Foundation

With narratives drawn from social conflict, oral history traditions and nonlinear storytelling, Amar Kanwar’s films offer a poetic vantage point from which to consider the ideologies and solidarities that populate the contemporary world.

The Peacock’s Graveyard (2023)

Amar Kanwar
The Peacock’s Graveyard
2023
Digital video installation, 7 screens
28 minutes 16 seconds (sync, loop), dimensions variable
Credits: Anwar Kanwar (camera, script), Sameera Jain (editing), Sherna Dastur (design), Prateek Shekhar and Arunima Tenzin Tara (assistant directors), Javed Sultan (research), Utsav Lal (music), Company3 (colour), Dominic Phipps (digital colour), Ellora Soret (colour executive producer), Kerri Aungle (colour line producer), Alex O’Brien, Santino Napolitano and Jack Kennedy (colour assists), Sanjay Uniyal (production management), and Vijay Jha and Sudhir Das (travel)
Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation
Courtesy of the artist

Overview

With narratives drawn from social conflict, oral history traditions and nonlinear storytelling, Amar Kanwar’s films offer a poetic vantage point from which to consider the ideologies and solidarities that populate the contemporary world. The Peacock’s Graveyard (2023), a video installation, weaves together a constellation of images and stories on separate channels in the exhibition space. The film combines traditional narrative structures, folklore, speculations and personal experiences to rekindle older philosophies with emerging forms of contemporary violence and suppression. Through various editing and staging methods, Kanwar invites viewers to reconfigure their viewing of non-canonical wisdom as they search for new ways of resistance, reconciliation and politics.