Shilpa Gupta: For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit: Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, The Netherlands

A symphony of 100 forbidden, censored voices: in For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit, Shilpa Gupta gives a voice to poets who, throughout the centuries, have been imprisoned for their writing or their beliefs. Including poetry from the 8th to the 21st centuries by authors such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Samuel Bamford, Irina Ratushinskaya, and the 14th century Azerbaijani poet Nesimi – whose writing inspired the title of the installation – the soundscape alternates between languages including Arabic, Azeri, Chinese, English, Hindi and Spanish where each microphone utters verses of poetry echoed by a chorus of its ninety-nine counterparts, as if standing together in solidarity. This remarkable sound installation from the Voorlinden collection is being shown in the Netherlands for the first time.

The key work For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit by Shilpa Gupta is presented alongside a selection of her works from the museum’s collection. In her practice, the multidisciplinary artist from India often emphasizes the fragility of the right to freedom of expression, and raises urgent questions about censorship, confinement, and resistance. Gupta's work also questions geographical and political borders, as well as the ways in which we view others and ourselves.

Image:
Shilpa Gupta, For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit, 2017-18, Collection museum Voorlinden. Photo by Pat Verbruggen