Nalini Malani, In Search of Vanished Blood 2012–20. Photo © Tate (Joe Humphrys)
9 rooms in Materials and Objects
Nalini Malani’s ‘video shadow plays’ combine video, shadow and sound to tell multiple stories. In this work, she creates a tribute to women’s lives forgotten throughout history
Each cylinder in In Search of Vanished Blood is reverse painted and features images of dispossessed people, mythological figures and surgical instruments. They cast ominous shadows which shift across the projections.
The artist draws inspiration from a range of sources. We hear Cassandra, a figure from Greek mythology who predicts the future but is cursed, so no-one believes her. Referencing texts from German writers Christa Wolf and Heiner Müller, Indian writer and activist Mahasweta Devi, Irish author Samuel Beckett, and others, Cassandra anticipates violence against women during periods of political upheaval. Her story unfolds through stop-motion animations inspired by both historic and recent wartime atrocities.
The title of the work In Search of Vanished Blood is from the poem Lahu ka Surag 1965 by Pakistani writer Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Lines from the poem appear over Cassandra’s veiled face. People who have experienced violence reappear through the endless loops of recurring shadows, creating a sense of lost hope. The sequence ends with a gesture in American Sign Language that expresses a longing for democracy.
Malani’s work reflects her commitment to feminist activism. In Search of Vanished Blood amplifies women’s voices to express Malani’s belief in humanism – the strength of what we have in common rather than what divides us.
Display supported by the South Asia Acquisitions Committee
Nalini Malani, In Search of Vanished Blood 2012–20
In Search of Vanished Blood 2012 is a room-sized installation consisting of six synchronised projected films, a soundscape and five rotating transparent cylinders made of a type of polycarbonate plastic known as Mylar; these have paintings of animals and mythological figures on their inside surface. As the films are projected through the cylinders, which rotate at four revolutions per minute, shadows form across the animations and are cast around the gallery walls. Produced for documenta 13 in 2012, this is one of a number of works involving film projections and rotating reverse-painted transparent cylinders which the artist calls ‘video/shadow plays’, referring to the narratives and layers that are unveiled through the duration of the films and soundscape. It gives voice to women in Greek and Hindu mythologies, lamenting histories of gendered violence – particularly in times of modern conflict – and clashing ideals of dominating nationalisms.
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artworks in Nalini Malani
Art in this room
Nalini Malani
In Search of Vanished Blood
2012–20