Shilpa Gupta - Bikaner House

It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the gloom surrounding Shilpa Gupta’s sound installation Listening Air, 2019–22, which was presented by Vadehra Art Gallery at the Centre for Contemporary Art at Bikaner House. Above my head, microphones and dim bulbs moved in a slow dance to the haunting strains of songs in different tongues. I could discern, for instance, the familiar “Hum Dekhenge” (We Shall See), penned by Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, which crossed borders to become a rallying cry and a symbol of hope among Indian student protesters in 2019. Also in the mix was “Bella Ciao,” a song in tribute to the anti-fascist partisans of the 1940s, which became an anthem of resistance during farmers’ sit-down protests in Delhi in 2020. The installation was reminiscent of Gupta’s earlier work For, in Your Tongue, I Can Not Fit – 100 Jailed Poets, 2017–18, which featured the works of poets who were imprisoned either for their poetry or politics. 

12 May 2025