Divya Mehra, From India to Canada and Back to India (There is nothing I can possess which you cannot take away)

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Divya Mehra, "From India to Canada and Back to India (There is nothing I can possess which you cannot take away)," 2020

installation view, MacKenzie Art Gallery. Photo by Sarah Fuller. Image courtesy the artist and Georgia Scherman Projects.

The MacKenzie Art Gallery is pleased to announce the launch of a solo exhibition of new and recent work by Winnipeg-based artist Divya Mehra, From India to Canada and Back to India (There is nothing I can possess which you cannot take away). The exhibition will be formally launched with an online conversation featuring the Asian Brain Trust—a collective comprised of Divya Mehra, writer Amy Fung, and curator Kim Nguyen. More information on the launch is forthcoming.

For her project, Mehra stages an intervention into the permanent collection, performing a conceptual heist that deftly and playfully addresses the practices, ideologies, and legacies of collectors and benefactors of the early twentieth century.

“Divya’s work is stunning: it strikes you with its beauty and humour then shakes you to your senses by revealing the absurdity embedded in the systems we take for granted,” says John Hampton, Interim CEO and Executive Director of the MacKenzie Art Gallery. “We are excited and humbled by the work she has done investigating our own complex histories—calling us to task as we work to heal the cultural harms embedded within our institution.”

During a site visit to the gallery, Mehra’s research uncovered a not-so-peculiar story about a small stone sculpture in the University of Regina’s collection, held in trust and stewarded by the gallery. The stone sculpture was stolen at the direction of the gallery’s namesake, Norman MacKenzie, during a trip to Banares, India in 1913. MacKenzie believed that he had acquired a sculpture of the Hindu deity, Vishnu, and it was subsequently catalogued as such. This misidentification was corrected in the fall of 2019 when Mehra, recognizing that the clearly female figure was not Vishnu, reached out to Dr. Siddhartha V. Shah, Curator of South Asian Art, Peabody Essex Museum who revealed that the deity depicted was in fact Annapurna, also known as the Queen of Benares.

The sculpture now sits in the vault beneath the MacKenzie Art Gallery, while it undergoes the gallery’s first ever deaccession review for potential repatriation to India, prompted through Mehra’s research and intervention. In place of exhibiting the stolen stone sculpture, Mehra has produced a new work entitled, Not Vishnu: New ways of Darsana, a bag of sand—purchased at a Hollywood prop store (rich in Indiana Jones memorabilia) and artificially aged by Mehra—weighing the equivalent of the piece it replaces.

Alongside this new installation, Mehra will present two recent inflatable artworks—one a 15’ replica of the Taj Mahal, the other an 8’ replica of Edward Said’s influential book, Orientalism—that caricaturize the West’s desire to simultaneously define and consume the histories and identities of other cultures.

ABOUT DIVYA MEHRA

Known for her meticulous attention to the interaction of form, medium and site, Divya Mehra’s work deals with her diasporic experiences and historical narratives. She incorporates found artifacts and readymade objects as active signifiers of resistance or as reminders of the difficult realities of displacement, loss, neutrality and oppression. Mehra works in a multitude of forms, including sculpture, print, drawing, artist books, installation, advertising, performance, video and film. 

Divya Mehra is represented by Georgia Scherman Projects: georgiascherman.com.

divyamehra.com

ABOUT ASIAN BRAIN TRUST

Asian Brain Trust was founded in 2014 by Amy Fung (Scorpio), Divya Mehra (Scorpio), and Kim Nguyen (Cancer) as an arts research collective. Together they have lectured and presented in international conferences and settings (Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Amsterdam, New York, Halifax, Vancouver, Toronto) on the topics of race, power, violence, and performance in contemporary visual arts. badsociety.ca