This exhibition enables people to live and feel history

The Hindu

2 days ago

An abandoned chair balances precariously on a pile of rubble in the corner of the gallery of the Bangalore International Centre (BIC) in Domlur, where Un. Divided Identities, an interactive exhibition on the 1947 Partition, is still being set up.
I flit between the various open doors scattered across the space, stepping past a myriad collection of objects across the gallery, including the frame of a charpoy, oil lamps, a dented tiffin carrier, choolah and a battered-looking metal trunk, all anachronistic enough to evoke a sense of loss, nostalgia and memory.
The curatorial note, already up, explains what all these various objects seek to do collectively: help create a 'tactile, layered and visually compelling' encounter that enables visitors to 'pause, think and respond' to Partition.
Un. Divided Identities, which has been conceptualised and curated by the Bengaluru-based ReReeti Foundation, was conceptualised around five years ago, says Tejshvi Jain, founder-director of ReReeti.
Their first major initiative, she says, was an online workshop with university students in India and Pakistan where, 'we looked into themes of identity, migration, loss, conflict resolution and things like that.'
One of the planned outcomes of the project, right from the start, was to have an exhibition around lesser-known stories about Partition because, 'whatever is known about Partition in textbooks is the political version.'
To make it relatable to young people, however, 'it has to have a personal connect, not a political one,' believes Tejshvi, adding that the exhibition sought to bridge the gap between the political and the personal, drawing on lived experiences gathered via oral history interviews in addition to historical research.
The plan was to have a physical exhibition, but then the second wave of COVID-19 happened, so they decided to pivot and do a digital version instead, she recounts. That is how Un. Divided Identities first emerged in October 2022 as an interactive, choice-based digital exhibition, conceived in partnership with the British Council and Glasgow Life Museums.
The exhibition, co-created with eight young people of South Asian descent, located in both India and Glasgow, attempted to amplify the voices and experiences of ordinary people, enabling viewers to step into the lives of Partition survivors, virtually experiencing the hard choices and collective trauma they endured. 'They're put in the shoes of someone who has encountered Partition,' she says. 'We wanted them to not just read about history, but feel it.'
Additionally, because the Partition story could not be told only from India's perspective, ReReeti partnered with schools in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and did workshops on how to conduct and document oral history interviews.
'So suddenly history became alive for them, became interesting. It went beyond just facts, dates and events and became more people's stories, more personal and more relevant to them,' she says, pointing out that much of what came out of these students' oral interviews fed into the main narrative.
Now, three years later, Un. Divided Identities has been reimagined as a physical, experiential space. Designed by Aditi Dhamija, in collaboration with the Bangalore International Centre, the exhibition allows visitors to physically experience the weight of this mass migration event, which affected nearly 14 million people. 'The content is the same, but the way we have interpreted it is different,' says Tejshvi, who believes that having it in the physical format helps create a space for communities where communication can happen, which is 'missing in the digital format because you are consuming it yourself.'
And in an age where 'this question of borders keeps coming up', having physical spaces for these conversations are essential since it allows young people to 'broaden their vision, absorb, see the multiple perspectives, analyse and then come to their own judgement,' explains Tejshvi, After all, 'everything going on in today's world is deeply rooted in history,' she says. 'It never leaves you.'
Un. Divided Identities: An Interactive Exhibition on the 1947 Partition will be on show till Sunday, August 10, between 11 am and 8 pm. To know more, visit bangaloreinternationalcentre.org/event/un-divided-identities