“Can someone who has no art background follow along with the exhibit easily, especially given the large amount of information presented?” This is the question guest curator Shelly Bahl and lead archivist Anita Sharma asked themselves as they embarked on the exceedingly fast-paced six-month long journey to document Chicago’s South Asian American art history scene across the decades. Hosted by the South Asia Institute (SAI), the ambitious exhibition What is Seen and Unseen: Mapping South Asian American Art in Chicago navigates the intricate histories and contributions of South Asian American art in Chicago as “the first comprehensive exhibition to map and disseminate this vital chapter of Chicago’s art history” (SAI). The multifaceted exhibition, comprising two parallel shows – Shadows Dance Within the Archives, an archival exhibition of over 125 years of under-documented exhibition and cultural history, and Are Shadow Bodies Electric?, a thematic exhibition featuring eight contemporary artists who are creating surreal and/or unclassified shadow bodies that exist outside of time, place and space – delves into the processes, challenges, and narratives that define the South Asian American art scene. It presents a blend of historical, cultural, and artistic perspectives chronicled from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition to the contemporary era of 2020s Chicago-based artists.
Guest-curated by New York-based interdisciplinary artist and curator, Shelly Bahl, and community-based archiving lead expert, Anita Sharma, What is Seen and Unseen carries the dual burden of being both an art exhibition and the telling of an historical and cultural narrative. Centering the idea of community archiving, the curators were deeply committed to community engagement from the outset. With an initial scope of exploring a history of 25-30 years, as the project was conceptualized, it became evident to Bahl and Sharma that a broader historical context was necessary.
The project kicked off with a town hall in Fall 2023, where artists and community members were asked to bring archival material, such as ephemera and printed materials, which they felt would best represent their living legacy. This material was collected as part of the community-led project to guide the exhibition and highlight the discursive nature of the South Asian American art ecosystem in Chicago. The project included a mix of both physical and digital materials and artwork, collected from personal archives, homes, and hard drives, as well as from institutional archives.
Read the full story, “Curation and Community Archiving as History Making: The Processes and Challenges of Mapping South Asian American Art in Chicago” on Art Design Chicago’s website, originally published September 2, 2024.
