Who is invited to the city?

Amol K Patil at the Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh

For the last two weeks I’ve been reflecting on the current exhibition at the Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh: ‘The dead don’t go until we do’.

From the exhibition booklet:

As Rebecca Solnit has argued throughout her political writing, we live in an age where forgetting is everywhere. Contemporary politics operates on short timescales, obscuring the power of people and grassroots movements to effect change, which can take years or even decades. But where forgetting can lead to despair, remembering can lead to hope.

The dead don’t go until we do brings together four artists who demonstrate how we stand hand in hand with those who came before us...

… In the background of each of these projects is a sense of nature and an awareness of how traditions and systems of knowledge that root communities have been broken. Without a nation, or stable and dignified place to call home, the stories carried from family to family, friend to friend, mean everything. Here, landscapes, plants and animals are also called to bear witness.

One of the most interesting things for me was the spatial layout of the exhibition, which leads the viewer through four very different rooms. Four different installations, each one presenting a perspective on histories of marginalisation, struggle, suffering, and loss.

As usual, I hadn’t researched anything before going, wanting to feel my own impressions and reactions before getting into explanations and context. Amol Patil’s work was quite a contrast to Małgorzata Mirga-Tas (who I wrote about last week). Her work was hung on the walls of a large gallery space painted cobalt blue, brightly lit by natural light from a high ceiling above. I left this by steep stairs that took me up to a door, which warned me that I was about to enter a dark space.

A small room, almost completely without light. On the left hand wall, a film, which seemed at first to be a soundtrack with no visuals. Then, as I waited, ghostly images started to appear on the black wall; someone walking through a forest at night, feet crunching on branches which you could scarcely see.

...to a pier
then by ship
to the wharf
to the sirens blaring
loud loud loud bazaars
with a bundle containing
all their belongings.
Wide eyed
from the sights and sounds 
of the big city.
All barefoot.
There are neither flowers
nor leaves
Neither trees
nor birds.
Their eyes were shut
dreaming.

Video text

In front of me, a table, and a white boiler suit, empty of form, hands and feet.

I turn around and, on the wall behind me, some more of the story.

Amol K Patil’s father passed away when Patil was young, and his grandfather when he was in his twenties, leading him on a journey to understand their creative works. He was inspired by the boldness of their creative practices. As members of the Indian Dalit caste … they used poetry and performance to challenge British colonial rule, the caste system and to give voice to the experiences of those living in poverty.

Who is invited to the city? continues this artistic family occupation. It shares the story of those who moved to Mumbai for a better life, only to end up living in the hardest, darkest of situations. The film - which lends its title to the installation - is partly based on the mythical story of Hanuman, a monkey god who was so hungry he mistook the sun for a fruit and burnt himself¹. It also refers to the difficulty of life in the chawls - crowded social housing built by the British for Indian factory workers in the 1900s. Dalit poets, like Namdeo Dhasal, who is quoted in the film, protested the living conditions assigned to them by their caste.

While Amol K Patil’s drawings imagine looking back through cracks in the walls of the chawls, the sculptures remind us of the way lived experiences can leave their mark on bodies. Patil offers a poem on the balcony inspired by his father, representing the experience of struggling with everyday hardships.

This was a short version of the longer text in the exhibition booklet, which filled in details such as that the chawls built by the British often housed families of 10 in spaces as small as 10 x 12 feet.

I’ve been sceptical about ‘installations’ for a very long time, never having seen anything that called itself this that made much sense to me. I think this is the first time I’ve understood what an installation can actually do.

I didn’t need to read a long explanation before I was able to relate to any of it. There was impact the minute I walked into that darkened room and saw footsteps crunching over twigs at night, took in the ghostly boiler suit stretched out over the table with its bare hands and feet. The text on the wall that gave me the overview wasn’t a small label beside an image, it was an element of the whole, as were the poems on the wall after I left the darkened room. Even the longer text in the exhibition booklet wasn’t the usual conceptual obfuscation, but simply more detail of the story Patil wanted to tell.

People like my father and grandfather would keep moving from one village to another, passing messages through their art form. In the last few years, I am just like them. I am taking all the conversations about my community and moving from one place to another. Sometimes, performing for a hundred days for new people who do not have any idea about caste politics. My job is to share and pass on the messages.

Amol K Patil, NO NIIN Magazine, 2025

I’ve seen contemporary art about war or suffering before, but a lot of the time that work seemed to have been made for the purpose of creating a shock reaction, designed to pull its audience into aspects of the horror of the human condition for the sake of dramatic effect. This was the kind of work which stimulated me so often to think about the purpose of art in the world. Eventually I decided that, for me, art that ‘challenges people’ by (only) making them feel disturbed or upset goes against my sense of the good that art can do.

It took me many days after seeing the exhibition to sort out what exactly it was that had been stirred by experiencing this work. How was I supposed to respond? Did I really want to see art that made me feel horrified and miserable, depressed by the recurring and oppressive horrors of the ways that human beings continue to treat other humans?

But this is not that. Mirga-Tas’s and Amol K Patil’s work is about surfacing hidden histories, bringing them into the light. Their work is an act of honouring and remembrance²; a celebration of survival against incredible odds.

Finally, I understood. I can’t do anything about these injustices, this suffering, these unchangeable realities. My role is to be a witness. To not look away. To listen, and in listening, to stand firmly beside those who have to face this fire every day of their lives.

When I first started reading and writing on Substack, I read a long article about the history of art which ended with dismissive comments about the voices of people long invisible now being present in ‘the art world’. I don’t know anything about what was behind the writer taking this position, but I do know that this exhibition is the first time in a very long time, if ever, that I have stood within the walls of a contemporary art institution and felt that I understood what the art was trying to do.

1. The exhibition booklet gives more information about this. ‘Patil’s film… is about the historic movement of people from villages to cities in India. It is a tale of a desperate search for light, illumination and a true wakeful state, partly derived from the mythological Hindu story of Hanuman. Hanuman was a monkey god who became so hungry he mistook the sun for a fruit and tried to eat it, which caused him suffering.

In the 1900s, many of those living in rural areas of India were struck by drought. This led many to believe in the promise of prosperity in the city and influenced them to sell their lands with the dream of being able to earn enough to one day buy they back. Many, however, found themselves cast into darkness. This included Patil’s grandfather, who sold of lands gifted to him by a British officer in recognition of his theatrical performances, only to become a street sweeper.’

2. Thanks to Rogue Art Historian for the expression ‘honouring and remembrance’ which she used in a comment, helping me to find a way of expressing what I was grasping for.