Building a language of beauty and conflict

Veer Munshi on his first solo in the US and why his practice is built on Kashmir, both in terms of subject and belonging

- Nipa Charagi

At a lecture at Stanford University, US, during India Dialog 2024, Veer Munshi said, "I identify as a Kashmiri artist in India... As much as my art has explored pain and violence because of my own displacement, it also explores the value and strength of art as a collective sphere."

Munshi is holding his first solo show, Healing Wounds, in the US at Aicon Gallery in New York. "I call it Healing Wounds because it is in continuation of what I have been doing with reference to Kashmir: political migration, displacement, archiving the material time and again. What is new is the materials. This particular body of work has come from my Shrapnel series (2010). Those were the fragments which I have seen and experienced on visits to Kashmir: the debris that is strewn after stone-pelting or a bomb blast, and which changes the landscape," says the artist, who studied fine arts from M.S. University Baroda.

Munshi's work is moored culturally, emotionally and geographically in Kashmir, "subject wise and belonging wise". If Shrapnel conveyed pain, anguish, destruction, in Healing Wounds he has brought together the shrapnel pieces, hand-painted on wood in kari-e-kalamkari and papier mâché techniques, to create Kashmiri "carpets", lush, blooming like Srinagar's famed Mughal gardens and rich in motifs.

That Munshi prefers large dimensions is evident from the size of the carpets, which are evocatively titled: Jannate-be-Nazir (matchless place; 89x94 inches); Dastgiir (protector; 94x46 inches); Meeraas (inheritance; 94x94 inches).

Take Dastgiir, for instance. At the heart of the work is the 19th century shrine of Dastgeer Sahib, symbolic of the Valley's Sufi tradition, revered by people of all faiths. It was damaged in a fire in 2012 and subsequently rebuilt. It is also a showcase of Kashmir's rich handicrafts; the ceiling is in