democracy is a relic of an imagined society

2023 / 3 minutes / embroidery / video / collage

for the 2023 textile biennial, naqvi made the video installation democracy is a relic of an imagined society. in less than 3 minutes, naqvi presents the current state of their homeland through poetics of language and image. the literary text of the video guides us from communal tensions that are familiar to the muslim minority in india, to caste-violence and discrimination, and finally to the lives of women and children who work in India’s textile industry. exposing the contribution to a cyclical violence that the west selectively ignores at the expense of these women.

naqvi slams neo-colonialist capitalism with the statement: “a country is a colonial construct built for power and control. there is no land that constitutes a country without stripping it of indigeneity.” the hands embroidering a text in the video are those of the artist, who is making the tapestry that is also part of the installation.