Chitra Ganesh
Born 1975 in Brooklyn, USA
Lives and works in Brooklyn
White Bay Power Station
Listen to Sultana’s Dream by Begum Rokeya. Read by Uma Chakravarti (born 20 August 1941), an Indian historian, filmmaker and leading scholar of women’s and feminist history writing in the subcontinent, based in New Delhi.
Listen to Sultana’s Dream by Begum Rokeya. Read by Zohra Agathocleous
Listen to Sultana’s Dream by Begum Rokeya. Read by Uma Sultana
Listen to Sultana’s Dream by Begum Rokeya. Read by Mimi Mondal Sultana
Listen to Sultana’s Dream by Begum Rokeya. Read by Mariam Ghani Sultana
Sultana’s Dream, 2018
reproduction, portfolio of 27 linocuts on BFK Rives Tan
Presentation at the 24th Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous support from Terra Foundation for American Art
Courtesy the artist
“One evening,” the character of Sultana recounts in a 1905 story considered one of the earliest examples of feminist science fiction, “I was lounging in an easy chair in my bedroom and thinking lazily of the condition of Indian womanhood.” Suddenly, another woman appears before Sultana and whisks her away to Ladyland. Led by a queen, filled with flowered boulevards, agrarian innovations and flying cars, the Ladyland described was nothing less than a techno-paradise.
Authored by a renowned advocate for women’s rights in a Muslim context, Begum Rokeya Shekhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream was written at a time when social and agricultural practices in Undivided India were being repositioned by both colonial and emerging capitalist ideologies. By crafting a world in which both women and botany, one of the few disciplines open to female students, sustained a peaceful population Hossain presented a counter-colonial politics foreshadowing the ecological feminism that would become prolific in South Asia.
Set in the present, or the near future, artist Chitra Ganesh has created a series of images to illustrate Hossein’s groundbreaking story. Drawing parallels between the source material and contemporary concerns, Ganesh considers the ways in which a utopian future could still be realised, in the face of ongoing geopolitical struggles and environmental collapse, with the unfailing optimism of women.
Across a twenty-year practice, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Through studies in literature, semiotics, social theory, science fiction, and historical and mythic texts, Ganesh attempts to reconcile representations of femininity, sexuality, and power absent from the artistic and literary canons. She often draws on Hindu and Buddhist iconography and South Asian forms such as Kalighat and Madhubani and is currently negotiating her relationship to these images with the rise of right-wing fundamentalism in India.
Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.