This Night Bitten Dawn (2016)

Story of the Making

“ … And the heart still aches and the eye still seeks and will not be still” – Faiz Ahmed Faiz

The making of This Night Bitten Dawn started with a simple conversation over a phone call, between Lekha, Anupam and artist-activist Salima Hashmi, the daughter of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

The exhibition was built on the framework of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poem ‘Subh-e-Azaadi’ (Dawn of Freedom). The exhibition reinterprets the moment of the partition of India and Pakistan, nearly seventy decades later. Salima Hashmi curates artworks in conversation with each other that probe the past and the present simultaneously. It circumvents history as it is told, and reimagines and fashions it anew. 

Participating Artists:

Amar Kanwar, Anita Dube, Asma Mundrawalla, Ayesha Zulfiqar Shiekh, Bani Abidi, Faiza Butt, Farida Batool, Gargi Raina, Nalini Malani, Iftikhar Dadi, Imran Ahmad, Imran Qureshi, Ismet Khwaja, Martand Khosla, N. Pushpamala, Shilpa Gupta, Risham Syed, Roohi Ahmad, Sheba Chhachhi, Somnath Hore, Susanta Mandal, Tejal Shah, Varsha Nair, Unum Babar, Zarina Hashmi