Unbearable Memories, Unspeakable Histories: Anti-memorial project bears witness to silenced narratives of the Partition

Chicago-based Indian artist Pritika Chowdhry’s latest project, ‘Unbearable Memories, Unspeakable Histories’, alludes to the painful and silenced narratives that have been left out from mainstream discourses of the Partition Even after 75 years of one of the worst human tragedies in the world, the memories of the Partition still cause nights of dreaded anxiety in people, it still causes a sense of longing in the hearts of those who left their ancestral homes, lost their family members and a legacy that was their own. To understand the tragedy and pay homage to the millions of people who were a part of it, Chicago-based Indian artist Pritika Chowdhry has created an “anti-memorial” exhibition, tenth in The Partition Anti-Memorial Project since she started with Queering Mother India in 2007. Her latest project, ‘Unbearable Memories, Unspeakable Histories’, at The South Asia Institute in Chicago, alludes to the painful and silenced narratives that have been left out from mainstream discourses of the Partition. My projects in the Partition Anti-Memorial Project have now explored themes such as monuments in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, the English language as a tool of colonization, the 1971 war and its many ramifications, the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre and the year 1919 in world history, and a deep dive into the the creation of the Radcliffe Line.