Artist, Nalini Malani: I am Nalini Malani. The title of my work is Game Pieces.
Game Pieces started with a devastating moment that took place here in India, and that was the testing of the nuclear bomb. It was 11th May, 1998. And then, about a week later, Pakistan also tested.
The video part has footage from Japan—the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. And the images on the cylinders were like gentle creatures trying to wipe away the devastation. Of course, they fail.
I work with memory and the stress of recall. So what I want the viewer to experience is that stress: that he or she, when they walk into the room, they see a fleeting image of the shadow on the video. And then you try to grapple with it, try to understand it; but the moment you do, it's moved away. So, it then depends on your memory – how much you've recalled, and then you wait for that moment to come again. And maybe it will come, maybe it won’t … the feeling remains, but the actual presence of it is gone.