The Fourth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

The sacred and the profane 1998 Synthetic polymer paint on mylar, steel, nylon cord, electric motors, lights and hardware Dimensions variable Collection: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth 76 APT2002 Cat with a prawn in its mouth c.1885 Kalighat painting The story that is recited in Remembering Toba Tek Singh was written by Sadat Hasan Manto, a well-known writer in India and Pakistan. It is set in the aftermath of Partition, when India and Pakistan began to oversee the process of dividing up what had once been the goods and assets of a single nation. Apart from the migrations of between twelve and fourteen million people, in which over half a million people lost their lives, Partition also resulted in the exchange of Hindu and Muslim patients, including those with psychiatric illnesses. Remembering Toba Tek Singh is about one of these patients, Bishen Singh, who refuses to be transferred to India - as far as he is concerned, he is still in India. Due to Bishen Singh's recalcitrant behaviour he is forcibly moved, and during his journey he falls into the no– man's-land between Pakistan and India, where he dies. The sad irony of this story revolves around Bishen Singh's futile hope that his reality would be understood, while his (in)sanity is upstaged by the insanity that is part and parcel of Partition. Malani's installation uses the symbolism of that strip of no– man's-land on which Bishen Singh dies: as the parallel space which lies between the two women preventing them from folding the sari, and as the invisible yet lethal rays resulting from nuclear explosion, which affect the environment causing the mutation of human life.