Zarina Bhimji.
Jumabhoy, Zehra
LONDON
WHITECHAPEL GALLERY
The title of Zarina Bhimji's latest film, Yellow Patch, 2011,
gives away no secrets, and having watched it, viewers are none the
wiser. We know it was shot in India; that Bhimji has been researching it
for years; that it is about "the history of trade and migration
between India and Africa." The catalogue tells us so. And yet such
explanations don't dispel our transfixed bafflement as we imbibe
its nearly thirty minutes' worth of footage. We see the old Port
Trust offices in Mumbai, with their piles of fraying paperwork and
aimlessly whirring fans; gorgeously decaying mansions in Gujarat, with
their pastel-green peeling walls and sadly tinkling chandeliers; the
beige desert landscape of the Rann of Kutch (at the border between India
and Pakistan); and close-ups of a vast ship under construction.
Suddenly, the camera settles on a rotting, cream-hued statue of the
aging Queen Victoria, who seems to preside over the film like a
decomposing ghoul. Does her bulky presence provide a clue? Is Yellow
Patch about the end of the British Empire in particular and about the
entropy of grandeur in general? Maybe, but while Bhimji's poignant
images seem soaked in significance, they only hint at stories we are
never told.
Yellow Patch may be a documentary, but, instead of interviews and
didactic voice-overs the buzz of insects, the muffled sounds of
political speeches, and the shrill call of a peacock are interspersed
with Sufi love songs. Bhimji is often grouped with the "new
wave" of artist-filmmakers such as Raqs Media Collective and New
Delhi based Amar Kanwar as well as the verbose London-based Otolith Group, who give the conventional idea of
documentary-as-truth-telling-narrative a rough ride. Okwui Enwezor, seen
as the patron saint of this mode, commissioned Bhimji's Out of
Blue, 2002, a lyrical, elusive production "about" Uganda, for
Documenta 11. Both films were part of Bhimji's midcareer
retrospective, curated by Achim Borchardt-Hume, chief curator at the
Whitechapel Gallery in London. Along with films, the twenty-five-year
survey included light boxes, photographs, and installations. Bhimji (who
was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2007) was born in Mbarara, Uganda,
but fled with her family to London when she was eleven years old in
1974, in the wake of Idi Amin's expulsion of Uganda's Asian
population two years earlier. Given her background, it is tempting to
overlay Bhimji's light-saturated imagery with political intentions.
And her early works speak straightforwardly about otherness. In
Friendly, 1998, an advertisement from a newspaper for a public auction
in 1771 is etched onto a mirror. The gray words read FRIENDLY,
OFFICIOUS, SOUND-HEALTHY, FOND OF LABOUR AND FOR COLOUR, AN EXCELLENT
FINE BLACK. Looking into the glass to read the text, I saw my own face.
The self is reflected in the other, and vice versa, I quickly surmised.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Yet the fact that Friendly was displayed on the second floor meant
we encountered it after viewing Bhimji's more ambiguous recent
ventures. In her latest offerings, obvious signs of violence, loss, and
disen-franchisement have melted away, leaving only faint residues.
Perhaps they enact rather than state the fact of displacement. "As
I worked further I kept coming back to disconnection and
belatedness," confesses Bhimji. In her best work, we feel as if we
have arrived too late, missed the main event. The pale gold photograph
Shadows and Disturbances, 2007, shows the facade of a crumbling haveli (Urdu for "mansion"). Perhaps, once upon a time, it belonged
to an Indian prince; now its ornate mother-of-pearl mosaic appears
despoiled by time (or trauma). Beauty is never so affecting as when it
is about to disappear.
