Seher Shah, Geometric Landscape and the Spectacle of Force (detail), 2009
Archival Giclee Print, 147 x 305 cm
Trained in Architecture and fine arts, Seher Shah is concerned with the legacies of built structures and the genealogies of power embedded in constructed matter. Her practice explores the complex relations between architecture and its representation through mediums such as photography, drawing, printmaking and interventions with archival documents and sites.
In analysing the critical undercurrents that shape Seher Shah's work "Geometric Landscapes and the Spectacle of Force", scholar Bakirathi Mani introduces routes to think about questions of empire, nationalism, and the image as "monument" - a final and fixed referent that eclipses event/s and generates representational monopoly. Using Okwui Enwezor's concept of "iconomy", Mani presents ways to read "Geometric Landscapes and the Spectacle of Force" as a counter to the iconic hegemony of empires past, present and yet-to-emerge, gesturing to a field of transhistorical seepages and intersections.