LONDON.- The Gujral Foundation announced My East is Your West, a Collateral Event of the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, which unites for the first time in the history of the Venice Biennale the historically conflicting nations of India and Pakistan in a shared presentation. Located in the Palazzo Benzon, in the centre of Venice on the Grand Canal, the exhibition is a collaboration between two internationally renowned artists; Shilpa Gupta from India and Rashid Rana from Pakistan. As the subcontinent of India does not possess official state representation at the Venice Biennale, this presentation will provide a unique platform for artists from the region. My East is Your West is conceived by Feroze Gujral, Director and Founder of The Gujral Foundation, with Natasha Ginwala as Curatorial Advisor and Curator of Public Programming.

Born out of the desire to reposition the complex climate of historical relations between the South Asian nation-states of India and Pakistan, My East is Your West will present these two countries as a singular region within the context of the Venice Biennale. The thought of how the world would have been different had India and Pakistan not been measured by borders lies dormant but is ever present. In view of their practices, and as one artist from each country, Gupta and Rana have been invited to work together to create a unique presentation that will express the integral essence of a people divided, a history which spans antiquity, colonial modernity and a cosmopolitan present entangled in conflict.

This journey towards conceiving a shared platform in Venice builds on the artists’ concerns to negotiate between the individual and the communal in relation to the ‘everyday’ experiences of collective consciousness. Within their practices both artists explore notions of location and dislocation, transnational belonging, and the impact of cultural and political conditioning in determining our relationship to geographical and national territories. With works that challenge the modern nation-state and its divides, Gupta and Rana have developed a material aesthetic that surveys the potential of a common region, separate from the state and its model.

Rashid Rana (b. 1968) was born in Lahore, Pakistan, where he lives and works. He trained as a painter at the National College of Arts in Lahore and the Massachusetts College of Fine Arts in Boston. He is the founding faculty member and head of the Fine Art department at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore. Recent solo exhibitions include a major mid-career retrospective of seventy works, entitled Labyrinth of Reflections at Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi (2013), as well as survey shows at Cornerhouse, Manchester (2011) and Musée Guimet, Paris (2010). Participation in major group exhibitions includes Dhaka Art Summit (2014), the Kiev Biennial (2012); Fotomuseum Winterthur, Whitechapel Gallery and Saatchi Gallery, London (2010); the Asia Society, New York (2009), the fifth Asia Pacific Triennale, Queensland Gallery of Art, Brisbane (2006) and the Singapore Biennial (2006).

Shilpa Gupta (b.1976) lives and works in Mumbai, India where she has studied sculpture at the Sir J. J. School of Fine Arts from 1992 to 1997. The artist has had solo exhibitions in Asia, Europe and the United States, especially, in recent years, at: Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; MO Mucsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest; MAAP Space, Brisbane; Arnolfini, Bristol; and the OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz. Gupta has taken part in the Triennale Younger Than Jesus, New Museum, New York; the Lyon Biennale, curated by Hou Hanru; the Biennale of Gwangju, directed by Okwui Enwezor and curated by Ranjit Hoskote; the Triennale of Yokohama, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Biennale of Liverpool, curated by Gerardo Mosquera; and more recently at Dhaka Art Summit, curated by Diana Campbell-Betancourt, the Biennale of Sharjah, curated by Yuko Hasegawa, and the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, curated by Juan Gaitán and with artistic team member Natasha Ginwala. From 2002-2006, Gupta co-facilitated Aar Paar, a public art exchange project between India and Pakistan, along with Lahore-based artist Huma Mulji.