Installation (Installation)

Agony of the New Bed by Sheelasha Rajbhandari brings out the familiar yet often ignored reality of gender discrimination and taboos built within the construct of marriage. Part of the artist’s series Marriage Taboos , these portraits of women from different age groups in Nepal are staged on cotton mattresses placed on miniature golden matrimonial beds. The embroidered text on top of the portraits in golden threads are a representation of the range of vulnerable and resilient emotions experienced by women and the social beliefs towards them.

Photography (Photography)

Phan Quang’s portrait series Re/cover grapples with a lesser-known history in Vietnam. After World War II, many Japanese soldiers who fought in Vietnam stayed in the country. They married Vietnamese women, had children, and lived in the country until Japan recalled them home.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

The Wedding is a silent film, a probing observation of marriage rituals in Qatar in which we soon notice that there is not a single woman visible. The film is part of the broader project The Challenge through which the artist depicts the boredom and rituals endured by young Qatari men throughout various forms of costly and codified entertainment, including the highly theatrical practices of falcon hunting or car racing. The strange, almost surreal, choreography set against an artificial, overexposed backdrop, highlights the privileged presence of men in this part of the world, grouped together by sex and social class.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

“The Wedding” is the centerpiece of a series of works centered on a film of the artist’s parents’ wedding in 1978, the year before the Iranian revolution that gave power to a religious fundamentalist regime. Struggling to remember the details and the date of the event, Rokni’s relatives inadvertently embellish and recreate the excitement, confusion, and eventual disappointment of those historic months in Iran. The uncertainty about the wedding date seems to mirror the confusion of the historic turmoil about to sweep Iran.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Reflection Paper No. 2 is one of four videos in which Wang attempts to accurately illustrate the writings of influential Chinese Eileen Chang, who published her works during the Japanese occupation of China. Image and text reflect on the everyday experiences of women in society, family, marriage, love, and death.