Artist Sohrab Hura joins us to discuss his moving-image work and to present a new video alongside select works on view in the exhibition Sohrab Hura: Mother at MoMA PS1. Hura is renowned for capturing remarkable everyday moments that bring into focus systemic political forces: colonially imposed borders, the trauma of partition, the changing ecosystem of the Indian subcontinent. He often considers sociopolitical issues, such as rural divestment and religious freedoms, through an analysis of how events are framed in media. By navigating the challenges intrinsic to the immediacy, circulation, and mediation of image-making today, Hura emphasizes the power in—and limits of—the frame.
This screening will shed light on Sohrab’s myriad filmic approaches. The earliest work on view, Pati (2010/2020) utilizes a documentary approach to draw attention to the impact of divestment and loss of industry on everyday people in the Central Indian region. Filmed over 10 years, Bittersweet (2019) takes a more inward turn, centering Hura’s mother and her dog while emphasizing the richness to be found within the banality of life. The Lost Head and the Bird (2019) collages footage from WhatsApp chats, video games, and news segments with ever-increasing speed, exploring what Hura calls “a frighteningly fast-changing, post-truth world where actions are fueled by appeals to emotion and facts are increasingly ignored.” In The Coast (2020), Hura revels in the sensorial spectacle of the Dasara festival, in which participants take a liberatory jump into the ocean, a ritual that transcends gender, caste, and other trappings of everyday life.
The screening will be followed by a conversation between Hura and Ruba Katrib, chief curator and director of curatorial affairs at MoMA PS1.
Pati. 2010/2020. India. 11 min.
The Lost Head and the Bird. 2019. India. 10 min.
Disappeared. 2025. Nepal/India. 5 min.
Bittersweet. 2019. India. 14 min.
The Coast. 2020. India. 17 min.
Program approx. 60 min.