N S Harsha at Iniva
Nations, N S Harsha, hand-painted flags, sewing machines, 2008 (detail of installation view at Sharjah Biennial photo © the artist and Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai)
Indian artist N S Harsha’s installation Nations is currently on show at Iniva’s Rivington Place HQ (until 31 October)
Nations was exhibited at Sharjah Biennial in 2008, and the Shanghai Art Fair in 2007, but it’s the first time that the work has gone on show in the UK. It’s a vast installation, made up of row upon row of old-fashioned treadle sewing machines each on their own individual stands. A brightly coloured flag – one for each UN country – is clamped under each of the 192 machines and from a distance it looks like a neatly ordered factory just before the workers arrive. But on closer inspection you can see that each machine is connected to the others by a cats cradle of coloured threads, forming an elaborate web that can only be broken by force. It’s a powerful comment on globalisation, underlining how each country is connected by economic ties, many of which are related to the textile industry, the rows of sewing-machines recalling the third-world sweatshops where many of these textiles are made.
Also at Iniva at the moment is Chen Chieh-jen’s film Factory. Like Nations it asks questions about the textile industry, filming Taiwanese workers who used to work in a garment factory closed down seven years ago – there are haunting shots of the derelict factory as well as the redundant workers, left high and dry by the unscrupulous factory owners who abandoned them.
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