New
Ishara Art Foundation Supports Public Sculpture Commission By Shilpa Gupta
The Foundation is pleased to support ‘Still They Know Not What I Dream’ by Shilpa Gupta, a light-text sculpture commissioned by Alserkal Arts Foundation. The work was recently launched during Alserkal Art Week, running from 13 to 20 April 2025, and forms part of a series of public art commissions curated by Fatoş Üstekunder the theme ‘Between a Beach and a Slope’. The sculpture is located at The Yard in Alserkal Avenue.
Exploring the nature of self within a world marked by inequity, control, and surveillance, ‘Still They Know Not What I Dream’ presents its text in reverse, challenging viewers to rethink everyday spaces and movements. The work interrogates how language both represents and obscures human history and memory, exploring the power of symbols in shaping identity and collective memory.
The sculpture is presented in parallel with ‘Shilpa Gupta: Lines of Flight’, the artist’s first solo exhibition in West Asia, currently on view at the Ishara Art Foundation. Sabih Ahmed, Projects Advisor at Ishara and the curator of the exhibition, said: “Ishara is proud to support Shilpa Gupta’s ‘Still They Know Not What I Dream’ presented by the Alserkal Arts Foundation. The work continues the artist’s play with language as a tool for control on the one hand, and a medium of resistance on the other. The sculpture extends the exhibition’s exploration of ‘poetic justice’ and how poets and writers navigate what can and cannot be spoken.”
‘Lines of Flight’, curated by Sabih Ahmed, features a diverse selection of artworks from 2006 to the present that include a new sound installation, site-specific interventions, sculptures, drawings, prints and videos, foregrounding Gupta’s longstanding critical engagement with narratives of mobility, control and acts of resilience. The exhibition includes artworks that regard poets and the ramifications of their poetry in the face of rising intolerance, such as ‘A Liquid, the Mouth Froze’, works from the ‘Untitled (Jailed Poet Drawings)’ series, and ‘Listening Air’.
Commenting on the rising popularity and momentum of South Asian art internationally, Smita Prabhakar, Founder and Chairperson of the Ishara Art Foundation, said: “As a dedicated member of the South Asian art community, I feel that art from the sub-continent is finding its rightful place. The magnitude of artworks both in scale and relevance offers not only a view into South Asia but to issues that are of importance to all of humanity.”
Speaking on Ishara’s role as a base for South Asian art in the diaspora, she added: “With the UAE and especially Dubai serving as a hub and transit for international visitors both from the art community and beyond, Ishara is place where contemporary art practices from South Asia can find an international platform.”
‘Still They Know Not What I Dream’ is presented as part of ‘Between a Beach and a Slope’ curated by Fatoş Üstekalongside works by NujoomAlghanem and Kirstine Roepstorff, commissioned by Alserkal Arts Foundation.
‘Shilpa Gupta: Lines of Flight’ at the Ishara Art Foundation runs until 31 May 2025. The exhibition has been generously supported by Carl F. Bucherer, with insurance support from Emirates Insurance Company, and logistical support from Galleria Continua, neugerriemschneider, and Vadehra Art Gallery.
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