Zuleikha Chaudhari
Rehearsing Azaad Hind Radio (2018)
Courtesy of the artist
Mixed messages transmitted over the radio are the main subject of Zuleikha Chaudhari’s installation. It represents a studio of a World War II–era Berlin-based broadcaster of Indian nationalist propaganda. The station was led by Subhas Chandra Bose, a militant patriot and man of many guises who sought the aid of Adolf Hitler and his Japanese allies in the struggle against British rule. Chaudhari’s installation addresses this troubling figure in the context of a new quasi-fascist Hindu nationalism by mixing his speeches, rehearsed by actors, with footage of speeches about nationalism given at teach-outs during the 2016 student movement at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Zuleikha Chaudhari (1973, Mumbai, India) is a theater director and lighting designer whose practice shifts between theater and installation. Chaudhariʼs research considers the structures and codes of performance, as well the function and processes of the actor as reality and truth production. Since 2015, she has been exploring the framework of law as performance, the role of performance in law, and the performativity of legal truth production. She is currently the director of the Alkazi Theatre Archives at The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi. Her works have been shown internationally at festivals and biennials.
Commissioned and coproduced by Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
With the support of the Goethe-Institut
Zuleikha Chaudhari at Artist Talks
22.9., 12:00–13:00
Installation, video, 40 min.
English with German subtitles
Demon Radio
Group exhibition
Cinematographer: Desmond Roberts
Sound designer: Ish S
Costume designer: Amal Allana
Editor: Ganesh Prasad
Make-up: Pardeep Chahar
Backdrops: Satinder Singh
Assistant: Paromita Dasgupta
Costumes: New Prominent Tailors
Texts: radio broadcasts by Subhas Chandra Bose, JNU lectures on nationalism, and excerpts from Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine
Commissioned and coproduced by Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
With the support of the Goethe-Institut
Zuleikha Chaudhari at Artist Talks
22.9., 12:00–13:00