Motherland: Pushpamala N.'s Woman and Nation

The interdisciplinary scholarly catalogue examines Pushpamala N.'s Motherland series, which explores the Indian nation personified as woman, mother, and goddess through photo-performances. It reveals that nations are invented and national embodiments are created, and the artist's burden is to reveal the ingredients of such inventions.

Format: Hardback
Length: 136 pages
Publication date: 03 October 2022
Publisher: Pramod Kapoor

Motherland is a significant series of photo-performances by Pushpamala N., an acclaimed artist, that explores the multifaceted aspects of the Indian nation personified as a woman, mother, and goddess. Through this series, Pushpamala showcases the diverse manifestations of Mother India, including her youthful beauty and spiritual devotion, her fierce and commanding presence as a militant goddess adorned with a garland of skulls, her role as a mother-surgeon guiding the birth of model citizens, and her pitiful state as a destitute widow, bent by years of arduous labor. By revealing these various facets, Pushpamala underscores the constructed nature of nations and their embodied representations. Her artistic endeavor is to unveil the ingredients that contribute to such fabrications.

Weight: 1060g
Dimension: 279 x 222 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9789392130113