In ‘The Lightning Testimonies’ (2007) Amar Kanwar confronts social violence by exposing the use of sexual brutality to exert power in times of political conflict.
The brutal split that created India and Pakistan in 1947 is the starting point for Kanwar’s disturbing yet poetic multichannel video essay, combining memory, literature, and history to illuminate the often repressed and newly urgent subject of sexual violence against women on the Indian subcontinent.
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Rather than representing the women as victims, his work emphasises the possibility of resistance by exploring ways of going beyond suffering. By examining the resilience and dignity of those who suffer he creates a space of transformative contemplation of unspeakable horror.
Amar Kanwar’s ‘The Lightning Testimonies’ was on display at Tate Modern (2018): https://goo.gl/XBbV6b
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