Living with a Wound, 2009
TV Santhosh, India
Description
The themes of violence and injustice run through Santhosh’s art practice. Drawing on reports and images from the media, Santhosh combines text and repetitive sculptural forms to comment on both the persistent nature of violence and how, through recurrence, it becomes the norm. Conceived after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Living with a Wound consists of three sculptural forms styled as skeletal remains. LED panels mounted on top of the pieces scroll a text recounting the story of an unknowing participant in medical testing:
“…Today I understand that the surgery that was done on me without anaesthesia was done purposely with tools that weren’t sterilized to cause infection…A part of the experiment was also to observe my ability to work with the wound and how far I could bear its pain…”
On a primary level, the work speaks about reopening old wounds but in the larger context, speaks of the relation of a society to the violence of global terrorism.
