Usha Seejarim: The Opposite of Illustration

USHA SEEJARIM THE OPPOSITE OF ILLUSTRATION Emma Bedford F rom a distance, the insistent and mesmerizing rhythm o f Zakir Hussain's tablas draws you irresistibly into the darkened gallery. On the far wall a huge projection o f swirling lights is ethereal in contrast to the throbbing pulse o f Indian percussion that communicates directly to your body, inviting you to dance. The Opposite of Illustration is the title o f a video, which Usha Seejarim shot while travelling in a car at night. With a hand-held camcorder focused on a shaky rear view mirror, the artist captured the headlights o f on-coming cars weaving along the dark freeway. When projected and played at full volume the work transforms the urban jungle into a paean to the world o f spirit. It is these concerns that are central to Usha Seejarim's work: the everyday urban environment, the journey-w hether domestic or global-and the spiritual path necessary for navigating these. "My w ork" says Usha, "is informed by my immediate 50 Stories (detail), 1 9 9 7 , f o u n d o b j e c t s , p i g m e n t , P e r s p e x , s t e e l P h o t o g r a p h e r U s h a S e e j a r i m surroundings and physical environment. Since I spend a large part o f my working day in Johannesburg it is inevitable that I find 'magic' in this urban environment." Usha Seejarim was born in 1974 in Bethal and is currently living in Lenasia, south o f Johannesburg, both areas to which South Africans o f Indian origin were confined by the colonial authorities who initially imported people from the subcontinent to work as indentured labor on the sugar plantations. The Apartheid regime later endorsed and legalized these separate living areas through the Group Areas Act. The Indian community Levi's Vintage Jeans, 2 0 0 0 - 0 1 , f a b r i c , p a i n t , p i g m e n t , s p i c e P h o t o g r a p h e r R o y G e o r g e h ^ b m Fall/Winter 2002 I in South Africa, the largest Indian population outside the subcontinent , has consequently maintained a relatively cohesive and distinctive character that inevitably impacts o n the younger generation . In Seejarim's words: "I acknowledge my 'Indianness.' I think it's almost unavoidable. I live in a community o f Indians. A lot o f ritual and ceremony happens around me." As a first generation South African o f Indian-born parents, Seejarim is particularly interested in exploring experiences o f transit and conceptions o f transition from one state to another. She examines family experiences o f relocation and dislocation from India to South Africa in works such as the installation entitled Mother Land, which, amongst other things, refers to the journey o f the artist's ancestors from India to South Africa. "A journey can be physical, external, internal, mental, emotional, spiritual or even unconscious. While referring to movements between points, it also involves process: especially o f ideas and o f growth," says the artist. In Mother Land hessian bags are suspended over a myriad o f tiny wax containers set in a rich ground o f red pigment. According to the artist, "The bags, in which goods were transported from India to South Africa, operate as metaphors. They look voluminous but they are very light. I feel that the Indian people in South Africa, because o f being removed from India, feel a need to hold on so tightly to their culture. And in that process they are almost losing it. The wax bowls are cast from clay pots used in significant rituals. A lot o f them are broken." The vessels used in the Hindu and Sikh festival o f lamps, known as Diwali, are traditionally discarded to symbolize new beginnings . However, the broken wax containers in this installation embody, for the...