Sutapa Biswas
Birdsong
An Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) touring exhibition produced in collaboration with Film and Video Umbrella
Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA)
T:+ 44 (0) 20 7729 9616
F:+ 44 (0) 20 7729 9509
Email: institute [at] iniva.org
www.iniva.org
“Sutapa Biswas makes an art of caustic beauty. For two decades her sharp eye and sure hand have worked hard to bring together the political and the aesthetic”. (Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London).
Sutapa Biswas has, in the last seventeen years, created an intensely evocative and challenging body of work, which has engaged with feminism and cultural identity. This international touring exhibition Birdsong comprises two new films, which explore the fluidity and mutability of memory within the context of rites of passage. Birdsong is a two-screen film installation with a horse in a domestic interior. Seen through the eyes of a child, this piece addresses the impossible reconciliation between dream, desire and reality. Shot at Harewood House, Leeds, Magnesium Bird is an ephemeral film charged with feelings of love, loss and trepidation.
Birdsong will tour initially to Angel Row, Nottingham. The films will also be shown over two venues at Leeds City Art Gallery and Harewood House, Leeds, simultaneously. Leeds City Art Gallery will show the two-screen projection Birdsong; Harewood House will show Magnesium Bird, filmed earlier on in the year in the 18th-century walled garden, alongside bird watercolours by J.M.W Turner, on special loan from Leeds City Art Gallery.
Biswas’s work has been shown at a number of international venues, among them; Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada; Photographer’s Gallery, Tate Modern, London; Yale University Art Gallery, Connecticut.
A specially produced monograph on Sutapa Biswas is published by inIVA in collaboration with the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland, Oregon with contributions by Ian Baucom, Guy Brett, Sutapa Biswas, Laura Mulvey, Moira Roth, Griselda Pollock and Stephanie Snyder. Paperback, 96 pages, size 220mm x 220mm, with 100 colour/b&w illustrations.
ISBN 1-899846-39-5.
Birdsong is an inIVA touring exhibition produced in collaboration with Film and Video Umbrella. Supported by Arts Council England Grants for National Touring, AHRB, Chelsea College of Art (London Institute), The Culture Company and the University of Southampton.
Cafe Gallery Projects
Southwark Park
London SE16 2UA
Tel: +44 (0)20 7237 1230 www.cafegalleryprojects.org
18/09 – 6/11/04
Angel Row Gallery,
3 Angel Row
Nottingham NG1 6HP
Tel: + 44 115 915 2869 www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk
City Art Gallery
The Headrow
Leeds LS1 3AA
Tel: +44 113 247 8248 www.leeds.gov.uk/artgallery
Harewood House Trust Ltd
Moore House
Harewood Estate
Leeds LS17 9LQ
Tel: +44 113 218 1010 www.harewood.org
September-November 2005
Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery
Reed College
3203 SE Woodstock
Portland,Oregon 97202
USA
T. 00 1 503 777 1112
F. 001 503 777 7769 web.reed.edu
About inIVA: worlds of difference 1994 – 2004
Founded in 1994 with an annual public subsidy from Arts Council England inIVA is a contemporary visual arts agency that supports and promotes the work of artists, curators, and scholars from diverse cultural backgrounds, seeking to make their artistic practices and ideas accessible to new and diverse audiences. inIVA creates and produces exhibitions, publications, multimedia, education and research projects. Investing in artists who deserve wider recognition and taking art and the conversations around its production into traditional and unexpected spaces is the cornerstone of the agency’s work as it focuses on creating opportunities for participation, exploration and life long learning by bridging contemporary art and the every day world. inIVA celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2004. www.iniva.org/
Supported by: FVU (Film and Video Umbrella), Arts Council of England, AHRB (Arts and Humanities Research Borad) & Chelsea College of Art and Design
Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA)
6/8 Standard Place
Rivington Street
London
EC2A 3BE
Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7729 9616
Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7729 9509
Email: institute@iniva.org
Web: www.iniva.org