Writing for the Toronto Star, Chris Hampton has crafted an attentive survey some of the works in Nep Sidhu’s Medicine for a Nightmare (they called, we responded) exhibition. What interests me about Sidhu’s practice in general, and what is exemplified in this new body of work, is the concern he has for exploring the many processes at play in building a relationship to the past, and how this kind of inheritance is reshaped by the practices of life as it continues to unfold. Hampton picks up on this same thread:
Across media — be it metalwork, sculpture, jewelry design, rug-making or the couture sported onstage and off by artists, futurists and mystics like Shabazz Palaces and Erykah Badu — Sidhu is intensely committed to craft. The 40-year-old practitioner is a student of its histories and techniques. It is his vehicle for time travel, bridging various ancestries to the future imaginary.
I believe that Sidhu’s work encourages a specific, embodied understanding of the history he invokes, showing history as an unsettled thing, both for himself and others. In pointing to the need to continue the telling of what has shaped us, perhaps it is that these stories may shape others and, in turn, be reshaped themselves.
Hampton’s article can be found here.
cheyanne turions 