Entering the dimly-lit room in Aspinwall, Kochi, which houses contemporary Indian artist Shilpa Gupta’s installation For, in Your Tongue, I Can Not Hide - 100 Jailed Poets, these words forcibly spilled out of me. Perhaps it was my silent attempt at communicating with the poets, whose voices emanate from 100 microphones suspended from the ceiling, resounding through the room and each of those who was present within.
Spears emerging from the ground piercing through written verses of poems, in a space resembling a dungeon, leave one feeling perplexed, claustrophobic even. Ironically, the silence that the poets break free off leaves one silent but contemplative.
16 August 2019
