Video Instillation: Martushka Fromeast and Anil Sharma

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This month VJIC is featuring a video instillation
by Martushka
Fromeast and Anil Sharma
entitled “Talking With Anil”

Introduction by the artists:
In Anil’s Sharma culture, relations between a man and a woman are dramatically different to what they

Video still fro "Talking With Anil" by by Martushka Fromeast and Anil Sharma

Video still fro “Talking With Anil” by by Martushka Fromeast and Anil Sharma

are in Europe. Anil believes in arranged marriages and wants his mother to find his future wife. He lives in the town of Manali in India, but the cultural ties to his birthplace in the remote Laholu valley remain strong. Anil has worked as a Himalaya guide since he was 15 years old.

I met Anil in 2011. He was my guide during a trek in Ladakh, a high altitude area in the remote Indian Himalayas. While climbing, we talked a lot. On our return from the mountains, we went for a pint in the local pub in Leh, capital of Ladakh. I didn’t know then, but it was at that moment our ‘artistic journey’ began. 

About:

Anil Sharma was born in 1985 into a traditional Hindu family from the caste of Brahmins. His father died when he was ten. The loss of his father has the life of his family. Anil had a basic education at school in the Hindi language. He got to know English and Western customs only when, 12 years ago, as an adult man, he started to work as a guide for tourists from abroad. In the culture Anil belongs to, the relations between a man and a woman are dramatically different to how they are in Europe. Anil believes in arranged marriages and wants his mother to find him a future wife. He lives in the town of Manali in India, but remains a part of the culture of the remote Laholu valley where he was born.

Martushka Fromeast was born in 1977. She is a visual artist and a photographer. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland, as well as from the Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London, UK. Having worked as a photojournalist for several years, she have covered stories of national identity and economic changes in Poland, Ukraine, Russia and the Turkish part of Kurdistan. In 2004, she co-founded the Click Academy, an art group that uses pinhole photography as a means of social change. Since 2005, she has been working with Romani people in Eastern Europe, visiting and documenting their settlements as well as running a community project, “Romani Click.” It accounts for the participatory approach to education of the Roma people and was exhibited internationally in Austrian Parliament in Vienna and in 2nd Roma Pavilion in Venice International Arts Biennale.  She was born in communistic Poland and is currently living and working in London.

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