By Namoos Bukhari
Unlike the militarised landscapes where death by bullets, torture - both physical and psychological humiliation, disappearances and several other fiendish acts of indignation have been perpetuated before and are still continuing, pellet shotgun injuries in Kashmir is a relatively novel phenomenon - perhaps the first in the History of the World.
The logic of injustice, and by extension, that of an affliction is to anaesthetise the ‘other’. But in many of these cases, this logic seems to have been turned upside down. It has been defeated. The afflicted are experiencing a heightened sense and sensation of being and in some cases the senses have been synthesised. They eye their hearing and ear their seeing. They see in peels of light and shadow; in a state of in-betweenness and in a visual language that only they know of:
A Secret Visuality of Injustice.
Enfolding in a one person voice as conversations, dialogue, observations, proclamations and rumination, this online iteration of
A Secret Visuality of Injustice - produced in view of the prevalent Covid-19 pandemic - centres upon the exploration of the nature of Light/ Darkness, Colour/Shadow and Silence(s) via the distinct mediums of animation, photography, sound and video.
This meandering engagement with the audience is reflective of how the Actant came to find, meet, listen, engage, and make friendships with survivors of pellet shotgun injuries in Kashmir. The arguments around the usage of pellet shotguns have been subjected to the tedium of frantic legalities. This exploration is to put aside the banalities of legal lexicon and paradigms - that have been fiendishly employed by the State in justifying the unabated use of this weapon of mass affliction - by attempting to parse through and evolve a poetics of colours, light, shadows, shapes and textures.
In this manner, a putative experience of Time is weaned off and a new one is created. A peculiar experience where Time weaves skeins out of the variations of Light and Sight.
A Secret Visuality of Injustice will be presented online followed by a live discussion.
Zoom link
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