Three experimental sound chapters from ‘we are opposite like that’ publication (2020)
‘Subcontinentment’, sound, 10:22 min
‘Antarctica was a Queer Rave …’, sound, 13:59 min,
Lady Antigua’, sound, 3:28 min.
Commissioned and produced by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary for st_age
Himali Singh Soin is a writer and artist based between London and New Delhi. She often works in a speculative way with performance, narration, and immersive audio-visual environments, and frequently uses metaphors from outer space and natural environments. Her multifaceted work
we are opposite like that (2017–22) thinks through alienation and intimacy, ecological loss and the loss of home, and explores the geography and imaginary of the polar regions through a series of dreamlike documents, love letters, poems, and predictions.
For st_age Singh Soin has created a trio of experimental audio chapters with musician David Soin Tappeser.
Subcontinentment encompasses a series of fictional ice archives and meditations on south asian futurism.
Antarctica was a queer rave… traces an icy history of conjecture, while
Lady Antigua starts with the bust of a black woman at the bow of a boat, and reflects on the artist’s “confusion being a brown body in the polar tundra.”
Subcontinentment has been translated into a sound installation for
how to tread lightly where the visitor is invited to submerge into the Singh Soin’s poems, read by the artists and where sounds from New Delhi during lockdown and the recordings made in her expeditions to the Arctic regions with her words.
This research in the polar regions has taken her to explore her “third pole” and focus a new body of work
as grand as what (2018–2021) on the Himalayas. Drawing on research into her namesake, she evokes animistic rituals and remedies, as well as summoning Buddhist concepts of astral planes. One iteration of this piece will be presented as part of the online digital activation programme on the 14th November in collaboration with the Shanghai Biennial.
PAST LOANSSolo Exhibition:
The Third Pole. Himali Singh Soin with music by David Soin TappeserVenue:
Museo Nacional Thyssen-BornemiszaCurators: Soledad Gutiérrez
Exhibition 25 October 2022 - 29 January 2023