MIF25: Shilpa Gupta – You are the Place at RISE Inavate Centre

Shilpa Gupta reveals the nuances of our sense of place with a brand new sound installation You are the place created for MIF25, on display at RISE Inavate Centre in Rochdale.

The work is an audio mosaic of different voices and languages, woven together following an intricate process of community engagement, gathering responses and working with songwriters. Gupta began with workshops with local communities, recent immigrants and asylum seekers who were presented with questions like ‘Is there something you think about very often?,’ ‘What is it?’, ‘Have you left it behind somewhere?’, Where?’, ‘Do you miss it?’. 

These seemingly abstract questions have the potential to reveal even the most intimate memories and thoughts about home, belonging and the fluid parts of our identity that change with every border crossed, whether it’s from the other side of the world or a few miles down the road.

The participants’ responses took on the form of text and drawing, which were then passed on to local songwriters who used them to compose verses in the languages most commonly spoken in Rochdale: Ukrainian, English, Urdu, Portuguese, Cantonese, Punjabi, Polish and Arabic. These are the verses that can be heard in You are the place, in an array of voices, including some from members of the community.

Shilpa Gupta is an interdisciplinary artist based in Mumbai, whose portfolio of conceptual works includes bottles of simulated blood; a metal gate that continually crashes into and slowly crumbles a wall; and lines of neon text amongst many other, equally varied works. Her practice defies obvious categorisation, but broadly deals with physical and ideological boundaries, whether it’s national territories or religious and political fundamentalism. 

In You are the place the artist adopts a gentle approach to personal stories gathered from local communities, where language becomes both a medium and the perfect meeting point between place and identity.