I don’t want to be there when it happens was first presented at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art between August and October 2017. The exhibition is then organised as a partnership between the Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts(PICA) and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art and expanded on the occasion of its presentation at PICA. 

4A Centre for Contemprary Arts
18 August - 8 October 2017

Artists: Raj Kumar, Sonia Leber & David Chesworth and Adeela Suleman

I don’t want to be there when it happens brings together artists who explore the psychology of contemporary trauma. Recent works by Raj Kumar, Sonia Leber & David Chesworth and Adeela Suleman all confront the larger socio-political realities of Pakistan in the era of contemporary warfare. Through video and installation, the artists address the experience of the individual in the midst of a continuous state of war. By scanning the landscape with nonsensical logic, futilely seeking to document destruction, and questioning the appropriation of religion, the artworks in the exhibition avoid resolution and closure. Instead, they highlight the individual’s inability to comprehend the expansive uncertainty of combat, and the impossibilities of representing the trauma of conflict.

I don’t want to be there when it happens presents truth as a precarious oscillation between fiction and reality. The artists resist literal or documentary approaches to their subjects, relying instead on speculative, symbolic, ambiguous and unstable modes of representation. In doing so, they emphasise how the individual’s attempts to understand and comprehend the reality of contemporary conflict are equally characterised by uncertainty and irresolvability. I don’t want to be there when it happens also seeks to acknowledge and present a multiplicity of perspectives on the ongoing conflicts in Pakistan and its region—perspectives which are all too easily overlooked or obscured by Western media and political interests.

The exhibition is curated by Mikala Tai and Kate Warren. It is a part of The Big Anxiety Festival.

Download the roomsheet here

Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts
11 - 24 November 2017 

Artists: Raqs Media Collective, Reena Saini Kallat, Raj Kumar, Sonia Leber & David Chesworth, Mithu Sen, Adeela Suleman and Abdullah M I Syed

Starting from the fragile and complex socio-political relationship between India and Pakistan in the era of contemporary warfare, I don’t want to be there when it happens investigates, in a broader sense, the psychology of trauma.

The artists invited to participate in this exhibition reference unpleasant situations; from their own everyday experience of the contradictions and problems they face in their personal universe to the alarming signals of the profound existential unease of our age.

I don’t want to be there when it happens explores the relationship between art practice and trauma, loss and grief. It is an examination of what art can contribute in the aftermath of such experiences, of how it can produce meaning and discourse through the act of engagement.

Adeela Suleman’s work to be shown in I don’t want to be there when it happens has been co-commissioned by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art and The Keir Foundation.

The exhibition is curated by Mikala Tai, Kate Warren and Eugenio Viola.