“For, in your Tongue, I cannot Fit”is an exhibition that draws from Gupta's year long research into a hundred jailed poets from all over the world. The relation between the poet and the state has been a troubling one across time and geographies.
Language, throughout history, has been used as a tool of power. It is a political institution that serves to control, to unify, to segregate and to identify. Poets have historically formed a resistance to language as a political institution. Their writing subverted the claimed ownership and dominance of language by state powers, returning it to the individual. This return of language systematically leads to a fundamental shift in awareness of personal freedom, reflective thought, possibility of dreams and the privacy of body.
The exhibition leads the viewer alongside many questions, reflections and dreams the poets gave words to. 100 fragments of poetry, shift shape throughout the exhibition leaving traces and lines in drawing, sculpture and sound. The works tell stories of deep conflict and endearment, exploring the political and societal restrictions, which seek to control and clamp both the imagination and the physical mobility of the poets.
The central piece: a new, large-scale multi-channel sound installation which gives sounds to voices of 100 poets who have been jailed over the centuries for their writing or political alignments. Running across the entire top floor gallery, 100 microphones are suspended above 100 metal rods, each piercing a page inscribed with a verse of poetry. In turn, a single microphone plays these verses, echoed by a chorus of the other 99. Lasting over an hour, the sound piece alternates between English, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Azeri and Hindi, among other languages. The title of the installation (and exhibition), “For, in your tongue I cannot fit – 100 Jailed Poets”, is based on a poem by a 14th century Azerbaijani poet Nesimi.
This exhibition invites to read and listen. To take an emotional journey through 100 stories, 100 poems and 100 small gestures of resistance that celebrate the freedom of thought.