never leaving never arriving

“Chasing the soul

dear life-line,

dear colonial entanglement,

dear unintentional togetherness and relatedness,

dear future,

Fragmentary notes. Either happy or terribly sad. This leaves us chasing, always chasing.”

Abstract

Unmuting the subject of partition: rhythms of depression and the ongoing crisis of the modern European subject Kolar Aparna & Manju Sharma In this paper we wish to engage with the entanglements between geopolitical moments such as the partition of India/Pakistan, ‘asylum crisis’ (since 2015), and more recently COVID-19 in EU and rhythms of arriving […]

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Het Huis Reading Performance

As the love trickles down, reading performance of my own written text during a residency with Het Huis, duration of performance is 20 minutes, October 2022.

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Mister Motley

Interview published in Mister Motley performed by Hidde van Greuningen, online October 2022. The interview was based on a visit to the exposition Gospel at the Museum Catharijneconvent.

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Het Huis Exhibition

Accompany, installation consisting of hand-sewn Kantha blankets made from saris, blanket sizes vary and are approximately 120cm width x 300cm length, image is from a solo exhibition at Het Huis, October 2022.

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International students and everyday racism and discrimination

Everyday racism and discrimination faced by international students in the Netherlands, interview with Metropolis M. Interview was published in the hardcopy version and the stories of 8 international students were published online, both in issue September 2022. This research consists of 8 conversations with ex-students and their struggles in the Netherlands. This article makes visible […]

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Charcoal from Fire

Charcoal on Hands, contribution to Fire, Trandisciplinary project at HKU Masters Fine Art led by Christina Della Guistina, WG Punt,  Amsterdam, June 2022.

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ART. 1

A sharing of artworks, texts and performances by 5 HKU Master Fine Art alumni, in collaboration with Utrecht University Law Faculty. ART. 1 explores how Article 1 of the Dutch constitution translates and unfolds in both personal and political urgencies when considering equality and discrimination. Together, the participating artists try to navigate their positions through […]

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kinship

Solo exhibition at MIJ Ijsselstein, from April – July 2022. Where does kinship begin and where does it end? How far reaching is it? Who and what does kinship include and exclude? If kinship speaks of belonging then it must also speak of exclusion. Who are the gatekeepers? Who decides with whom and what we […]

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Bus journeys

Bus journeys, story-telling performance at the Annual Danish European Community Studies Association Conference. Panelist in conference in Copenhagen on mobility and European crises, on everydayness. Duration 30 minutes, December 2021. Co-writing and reading diasporic bus journeys that encapsulate the notion of ‘always just arriving to Europe’. Writing bus journey stories as ways of being together […]

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Everyday note-taking

Film, duration 9 minutes.

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Abstract on ir/regular migrants

Collaborative essay, which joins a bundle of essay in a book on migration and data currently being printed at Nijmegen University. Expected summer 2022. Abstract The term “irregular” attached to “migration” or a “migrant” assumes the existence of regular migration and a regular migrant. However, who defines a process, person or activity as regular or […]

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Unpacking the Self

 Autobiography as Methodology, Forum+, autumn issue 2020 In this essay, I reflect on the use of autobiography as a methodology for story-telling in the visual arts. There is a focus on the methods used to explore the self and its relatedness to the world that one wishes to grasp. It sheds light on how autobiography […]

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My British Museum

Podcast, for Decolonial Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, duration 8″27″ minutes, 2020.

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Time-line and bodies

Time-line and bodies is an ongoing life-time text wherein each year I update my time-line based on memory, focus, events and predictions. The text can be viewed under heading Biography. Printed on paper, size can vary, approximately 35cm x 100cm, 2020, Trainings for the not yet, BAK, Utrecht.

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Here and There

Here and There, 2019, film-essay, 13’ 00’’. This poetic-film-essay is based on the exploration of how a diasporic body struggles with its internalised words to speak out – a shifting reality. There is no intention to make a conclusion, but to leave an impression of how it is to be a foreigner in your home-country, feared […]

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Citizens of Elsewhere

Manju Sharma, Citizens of Elsewhere, 2019, written work, 15,300 words. The libretto contains two letters of exchange, poems, music pieces, description of objects portraying nation and home. One letter is written to “Two minutes of Silence,” in which I try to understand why and how the western world is so fanatical with the WWII and remembering. […]

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Performance of Texts

Manju Sharma, Please keep me with you at all times, 2019, reading-performance, 30min. During the performance, I read a part of my written work and move through the available space and among the audience leaving uncomfortable silences that mirror how women of colour are often silenced by institutional structures still in place today. My reading is […]

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“Please keep me with you at all times”

The suitcase represents the baggage that we carry around with us, baggage as in cultural heritage, and the miss-match of cultures. It addresses the notion of home, and the importance to unpack the baggage that we carry around with us. Growing up in Britain, and in particular London, there was at first a threat of […]

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“Chasing Clouds”

Chasing clouds is about how war, heritage and displacement create borders and traumas that shape-shift through to the next generations.

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Performance BAK

Please keep me with you at all times, 2019, reading-performance, 30min, Futures Without (graduation exhibition) BAK, Utrecht.

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