A Scream, A Growl

Series of five prints

A Scream, A Growl is a print series illustrating a speculative narrative I conceived of based on archival material from the 1955 exhibition, “Textiles and Ornamental Arts of India” at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. The work considers an encounter between the dancer Shanta Rao, who was at the museum for a Bharatanatyam performance in conjunction with the exhibition, and Tipu’s Tiger, one of the exhibition objects on loan from the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in London. I imagine the connection Rao might have felt with the instrument given her dual roles as dancer and an unofficial ambassador of the classical Indian dances. As the former, she was determined to assert ownership over her work; as the latter, she felt restricted by government patronage, but was also, at times, a gatekeeper of the very same classical traditions she was disseminating. In the series, the dancer and mechanical organ merge to become one hybrid being.

Part Bharatanatyam dancer, part British soldier, part man-eating tiger out for revenge, and part wooden automaton and pipe organ, the creature embodies the complex, persistent, and inextricable colonial legacies that are attached to exhibitionmaking, collecting-building, cultural production, and cultural memory. The images act as a critique of—and sympathetic response to—the people and looted objects that become tools for cultural exchange and the promotion of empire.