Sandra Singh: Ararat (where the sun goes to sleep)
Sandra Singh is a documentary and fine art photographer currently in residence at Nest Artists Residency and Community Center. As a photographer, Sandra Singh's practice is mostly rooted in documentary and fine art photography, drawing inspiration from the current state found by the photographer and new narratives by engaging the viewer into a story told from new perspectives. Singh is looking for narratives of identity in the broadest sense – what defines a nation of people? What are we, people of a culture, truly made of? Is it the language, the stories told to our children, our approach to life's problems?
This project deals with a narrative full of tension – culturally, historically, emotionally. The heritage, the story of Ararat looms heavy. It's a symbol of loss, of resistance, of a future that might be, of a conflict that hasn't been resolved. The complexity of the feelings surrounding this landmark, this potent symbol, is hard to grasp for an outsider. Deeply embedded into tales of romantic nationalism, loss of territory and life, Ararat is a symbol like a phantom – fleeting yet omnipresent. This (work in progress) show reacts to the image of Ararat by raising questions about borders, remembrance and symbols. Working with collected, altered and own photographs as well as using multimedia elements, this exhibition aims to mix the very old with the very new.
About the artist
Sandra Singh (*1990) is a visual artist and photo/videographer living and working in Munich, Germany, working with various medias like analogue printmaking, bookbinding and film photography. Besides working on a documentary project, Sandra has used her residency at ICA to experiment with cyanotype printing, a photographic process anno 1850.