
Archana Hande
Historical Amnesia, 1994
Ink on paper, found frames
Set of 45 works, Installation size variable
Approximate size: 12 X 10 in (20 works), 15 X 12 in (25 works)
Approximate size: 12 X 10 in (20 works), 15 X 12 in (25 works)
©Archana Hande
Historical AmnesiaWatercolour, ink, carbon paper.1994, 1995, 2022The disposition to omit, forget or delete aspects of history that are, at least,inconvenient for the politics and policies of the present. History is...
Historical AmnesiaWatercolour, ink, carbon paper.1994, 1995, 2022The disposition to omit, forget or delete aspects of history that are, at least,inconvenient for the politics and policies of the present. History is a contested space;the class in power shapes it to their ideology. This is most evident at this point of time whenhistory is rewritten, changed drastically with the rise of ideology, creating an age of strongindoctrination. Criticality is fought back with violence and fear results in silence. As we are inthe 21st century – we all have got into the habit of being nostalgic. Tracing the roots – tomeet our ancestors, in such extend that we feel proud to have complication in our health toprove as a hereditary problem, which proves all of us somewhere or other want to proveour existence – right to live not being in-secured. History has become the romantic notionfor today’s generation. Which sometimes leads them to a myth, which they want to believe,which actually never existed. Especially when it comes to the question of purity in blood orreligion or nationalism. The insecurity of losing our roots has also lead to protect andpreserve the past – the practice of archiving in the present time. Archive became a majortool to look into the past present and future. Recording collecting researching gave them anopportunity to investigate many options, which they were not aware of their ownsurroundings. The question of loss and stored memory started becoming a huge questionmark.In 1994 I started recording things which I thought we might lose – my way of recording wasin the form drawings. In the same time I also started debating on to copy or to steal or fail."When studying art history, we were taught the difference between a copy and areproduction. It was very interesting. A reproduction can be of any dimension, but fora copy to be a copy, it has to be of the same dimensions as the original”"The concept of reproduction is different. Reproduction is not a look alike or a copy itis an edition. It is interesting to know about the same dimensions. The reproductioncan be enlarged. But reproduction means repeating and that I don’t like. Copy is nota repeat it is unique.I would like to copy and fail at the same time. The most difficult job to achieve this:you need to be secretive, you need to find references, you need to research in styleand mediums and materials, you need to be skillful ---basically you should have afantastic balanced diet.Coping also erases many memories, and adds on new memories. It is a slowprocess, without noticing many such information or data is vanished from thememory, and new story is been told which continues to be believed, like our historytext books.How do you archive records – was analog easier to keep the record without beingerased or is it the digital platform?Historical Amnesia is a series of drawings from 1994-95 to 2022 – I am coping orarchiving ‘The original’ and at the same time stealing and failing.I am showing one section of the series.