X-Rays by Tabeena Wani
Embroidery On Plastic
2019
To wash off these war crimes, all the rivers
in this country will not be sufficient
The whole land of this country
will not be sufficient to hide from these
The deep oceans will not be able to hide the mass graves
Where will you go, once the last judgement of god comes?
– @themumbaiwala
Tabeena Wani is a Kashmiri Visual Artist and part of the first graduating batch of the Institute of Music and Fine Arts, University of Kashmir, Srinagar. As an artist based in Srinagar, Wani gives voice to the trauma, loss and ultimate acceptance of living in a war torn, geopolitically unstable Kashmir. In a sentiment that resonates with her generation, she finds the plain and simple acceptance of the truth of her home’s circumstances to be unavoidable.
X-Rays was in the spotlight when Wani was selected for a National Award with Tata Trusts after she showcased her work at the Students Biennale organised during the Kochi Biennale. The awards, actuated by Tata Trusts and the Kochi Biennale Foundation, recognizes the participants for their excellence in art practices.
Wani brilliantly uses X-Rays of her body and embroiders various figurative and non-figurative patterns over them, each made to feel extremely prickly and uncomfortable, like a cactus on her diaphragm and lungs, and a mesh around her throat. These very poignantly and creatively turn notions of home and it’s supposed security on their head, showcasing feelings of uncertainty, far removed from the safety home should provide. The apparent display of this sense of wrong upholds her experience of how long lasting and ingrained memory of pain and loss of loved ones is.
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