The Forest Curriculum’s proposal engages with the militarisation of India’s borders, notably at its porous forested Northeast boundaries with Bangladesh and Myanmar. The collective of artists and researchers takes a close look at these borderlands, where local communities’ mobility and cattle trade through the forests and across the borders are heavily policed, an after-effect of increasingly violent nationalism and rising ‘cow protectionist’ vigilantism. Their proposal for a memorial is straightforward: demilitarise the post-colonial states, before which there shall be neither memorial nor celebration.
In anticipation of this, Forest Curriculum member Fileona Dkhar designed this shirt to wear to a party after borders are taken down. Barbed wires that cross borderlands, rendered useless, liquefy into the neon green of the forest, becoming vibrant patterns seen on the sweatshirt.
About the Artitst
The Forest Curriculum (Bangkok/Yogyakarta/Manila/Seoul/Berlin/Santa Barbara) is an itinerant and nomadic platform for indisciplinary research and mutual co-learning, based in Southeast Asia, and operating internationally. Founded and co-directed by curators Abhijan Toto and Pujita Guha, and with Rosalia Namsai Engchuan, it works with artists, collectives, researchers, indigenous organizations and thinkers, musicians, and activists, to assemble a located critique of the Anthropocene via the naturecultures of the forested belt that connects South and Southeast Asia.
The Forest Curriculum organizes exhibitions, public programs, performances, video and multimedia projects, as well as an annual intensive in a different location around the region, which gathers practitioners from all over the world to engage in collective research and shared methodologies: The Forest And The School, Bangkok (2019); The Forest Is In The City Is In The Forest I, Manila (2020) and II, Online (2020-2021). The platform collaborates with institutions and organizations internationally, and its work has been supported by the Australia Council for the Arts; the Sharjah Art Foundation; Ideas City, the New Museum, NTU CCA, Singapore, Nomina Nuda, Los Baños, and GAMeC, Bergamo among others. The collective has also exhibited in Nonhuman Assemblages, Busan Sea Art Festival, South Korea (2021), and Nation, Narration, Narcosis, Nationalgalerie – Hamburger Bahnhof, Germany (2021).
About Art Jameel
Art Jameel is an organisation that supports artists and creative communities. Our arts programmes foster the role of the arts in building open, connected communities; at a time of flux and dramatic societal shifts, we see this role as more crucial than ever.
About Jameel Arts Centre
Jameel Arts Centre is an independent institution dedicated to exhibiting contemporary art to the public and engaging communities through learning, research and commissions. Founded and supported by Art Jameel, the Centre is located in Jaddaf Waterfront, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
