Nations is a massive installation made up of row-upon-row of foot-operated sewing machines and national flags. Just what kind of symbolism lies within this work?
Nations
2007 / 2017
193 foot-operated sewing machines, acrylic on canvas
Dimensions variable
Installation view: “N. S. Harsha: Charming Journey,” Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2017
Photo: Shiigi Shizune
Pieces of cloth adorned with the flags of the 193 member states of the UN lie draped on stacks of foot-operated sewing machines. While Mahatma Gandhi may have given birth to the nation of “India,” N. S. Harsha considers it imperative to question the meaning of this “nation,” given India's multiple languages, religions, and cultures.
Nations is a work that was derived from the spinning wheel (charkha) that symbolizes Gandhi's Indian independence movement, as well as the sewing machine that served as a symbol of industrialization. The foot-operated sewing machine, however, also alludes to the fact that it was human energy and labor that was responsible for establishing nations. The designs of the flags were drawn up by making reference to children's books sold at little shops, but the fact that the flag only appears on one side of the cloth also seems to suggest the emptiness of the very idea of a nation. Since the latter half of the 2000s, Harsha has been experimenting with new possibilities in painting including those paintings on floor and wall that make reference not only to American, European, and Indian painting, but also that of other countries including Japan and China. In this sense, Nations also interrogates the very meaning of “painting.”
■Relevant Information
・
N. S. Harsha: Charming Journey
February 4, 2017 - June 11, 2017
・A “Charming Journey” Round the Works of N. S. Harsha
(1) We Come, We Eat, We Sleep
(2) “Charming Nation” Series
(3) Come Give Us a Speech
(4) Sky Gazers
(5) Nations
(6) Leftovers
(7) Future
(8) Punarapi Jananam Punarapi Maranam (Again Birth, Again Death).
(9) Matter
