Shrine Empire Gallery » Baaraan Ijlal

Bio CV Exhibitions

Phool Bano ka Khwaab

Education
Baaraan Ijlal is a self-taught artist based in New Delhi (India). She is interested in exploring anonymity as essential to individual liberty. She seeks to enable listening and creating witnesses to unacknowledged stories. Her medium includes acrylic paint, sound, video, light, and resin installations among others.

Exhibition History

2023
Art Dubai, Dubai, UAE
Art Singapore, Singapore.
India Art Fair, Delhi, India

2022
India Art Fair, Delhi, India.
Change Room at ‘Living Lightly: An Exhibition on Pastoralism’ 24th – 27th March 2022.
Bodhgaya Biennale, Patna, India. Curated by Anindita Dutta, December.
7th edition of Colomboscope, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Language is Migrant, Curated by Anushka Rajendran, 2021.

2021
Solo exhibition, Shrine Empire, New Delhi, India.
Group exhibition, Hub India: Classical Radical, MAO Museo d’Arte Orientale | Residues & Resonances, Italy.

2020
Seeds are being sown at Prameya Art Foundation, New Delhi, India. Curated by Shaunak Mahbubani.
India Art Fair, New Delhi.

2019
Change Room, (audio installation) at Chintretsukan Gallery, Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo,Japan. Curated by SGFA Tokyo.
Change Room, (audio installation) at CREAR econference, Kathmandu, Nepal. Curated by CREA Team.
Change Room, (audio installation) at India Art Fair, New Delhi, India. Curated by Prameya Art Foundation.

2018
Installation of Change Room at Bhopal Literature and Arts Festival, Bhopal, India. Curated by Meera Dass.
Installation of Coal Couture at World Health Organization (WHO)’s First Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health at the WHO headquarters during the UNFCCC’s 24th Conference of Parties.
Installation of Change Room at TENT Arts Space, Kolkara, India. Curated by Divakar Venkatraman.
Installation of Change Room at Conflictorium Museum of Conflict, Ahmedabad, India. Curated by Divakar Venkatraman through an Artist Residency.

2017
Installation of Bird Box at Oddbird, New Delhi, India. Commissioned by Sadbhawna Trust and American Jewish World Service (AJWS).

2016
Installation of Silent Minarets Whispering Winds at Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport’s Terminal 2, Mumbai, India. Curated by Rajiv Sethi.

2014
Installation of House of Commons at Alliance Francaise, New Delhi, India. Curated by Sanskriti Foundation through an Artist Residency.
Exhibition of two canvasses each from Trouble with Red Is and Baghdad Café series At Women, Art & Resistance show, American Centre, New Delhi, India. Curated by Georgina Maddox.

2013
Exhibition of two canvasses from Trouble with Red Is series At Sri Multiple Feminisms show, Gallery Beyond Kala Ghoda, Mumbai, India. Curated by Myna Mukherjee.
Exhibition of two canvasses from Trouble with Red Is series At Sri Multiple Feminisms show, American Centre, New Delhi, India. Curated by Myna Mukherjee.

2012
Exhibition of three paintings titled Queering Making I At Gallery Engendered Space, New Delhi, India. – Curated by Billy Stewart, Jose Abadi and Myna Mukherjee.
Exhibition of three paintings titled Queering Making II At Gallery Abadi Art & Creative Communication, New Delhi, India. – Curated by Billy Stewart, Jose Abadi and Myna Mukherjee.

2010
Exhibition of paintings and installations from House of Commons, To Be Continued and Stitched Wings series At Retellings show, Gallery Seven Art Limited, New Delhi, India. – Curated by Deeksha Nath.

Baaraan Ijlal is a self-taught artist based in New Delhi (India). She is interested in exploring anonymity as essential to individual liberty. She seeks to enable listening and creating witnesses to unacknowledged stories. Her medium includes acrylic paint, sound, video, light, and resin installations among others. Her sound installation Change Room, is an ongoing project to enable listening of unacknowledged stories, told anonymously towards possible change. Those who have recorded their stories with artist as witness include nomads ousted by authorities from the forests, people turned out of homes and neighborhoods because of their sexual orientation, victims of caste and communal violence, people who have been declared stateless overnight, and war refugees to name a few. Recordings have so far taken place in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Her installation Coal Couture, launched at the World Health Organization’s First Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health (2018) in Geneva is a mock brand of luxury luggage made as a coveted couture object. Her installation Silent Minarets, installed at Mumbai International Airport are anonymous letters by 43 women embroiderers of UP village to themselves.

The series, Hostile Witness (2014- present) is about silenced narratives. It explores the lasting phenomenon of mute spectatorship and its normalization at the expense of extreme violence.

Informed by a list of historic, fragile architectural structures that are not officially listed as monuments, and often have active communities living in and around them and lived histories, the artist began her own research. Repeated visits to the site involve conversations with those she encounters around/at the building to unearth the living memory and stories from the space. These stories are meticulously inscribed, layer by layer in a narrative form on to digital prints of their facades.

As in all her other works, narrated testimonies of living individuals entirely inform her process. The artist and the audience become witnesses to these accounts