When the Gun is raised the Dialogue Stops (Installation View)

Sheba Chhachhi & Sonia Jabbar's showcase at Senate House during Chennai Photo Biennale 2019. Intervening in media representations of armed conflict, dominated by groups of men with guns, this installation invites the viewer to enter the private spaces of war, to hear voices normally drowned out by the clamour of contesting stereotypes— the voices of ordinary women of Kashmir.
Humble materials— earth, bricks and rice evoke the domestic, within a configuration that draws on the contemplative formalism of the Mughal gardens in Kashmir. Somewhat subversively, rusted iron ‘books’ are placed within a series of rihals, book holders, traditionally used for the holy books of Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism. Each book is placed on a low platform, eliciting intimate contact with a B&W photograph and a testimony.
These testimonies, gathered over a period of six years, 1995 onwards, break out of the homogenizing, highly polarized representation of ‘Muslims’ versus ‘Hindus’, ‘Indians’ versus ‘Pakistanis’, ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Women from a wide range of communities and subject positions bear witness. Brought together despite different religions, ethnicities and experiences of the Kashmir conflict by an unambiguous rejection of violence, these are voices of strength, reason, and compassion.