Burial

An artist in exile, Veer Munshi may have left behind his native Kashmir, but he continues to carry it with him. With Burial, he has created a mobile memorial displaying photographs of himself. Underneath his repeated self-portraits are captions carrying reductive labels. These labels were attributed to Munshi and his Kashmiri compatriots by the militant Islamists (SECESSIONIST)—who in 1990 drove Munshi and more than 100,000 Hindu Kashmiri Pandits from their homes—and later by the media (REFUGEE).

Equipped with both wheels and a boat, Munshi’s Burial can travel across most terrains and is potentially engaged in perpetual procession. His portable cart allows him to vivify that which he has lost. In reference to his Kashmir home, which was burnt to the ground by his persecutors in 1993, he explains, “Homes don’t get demolished. They live inside us. They grow there.”

Burial was among many mobile, makeshift works of art created for the Sahmat Collective’s Art on the Move initiative. The Sahmat Collective has promoted artistic freedom within India’s often divisive political landscape since 1989. Munshi and the other members of the Collective are united by the urgent belief that art can propel change and culture across boundaries.