Three months after it was put together, the exhibition 'You Don't Hear Me' finally gets to make its debut before the public. It unfolds like an illustrated book and, in this set of drawings, installations and films where ancient and contemporary mythologies from the East and the West intersect, the committed voice of the Indian artist Nalini Malani, winner of the 2019 Joan Miró Prize, resonates.
Malani was born in Karachi, India (today Pakistan) in 1946. Her biography is marked by the mix of local and international history, says Martina Millà, project manager at the Joan Miró Foundation and curator of the exhibition. Malani learned anatomical and botanical drawing so that her family would let her pursue an artistic career; later she would begin experimentation with animation and cinema. In Paris, in the 1970s, she developed her political and social consciousness (and discovered Miró's work). Later, in New York, she would meet and be marked by the practices of Ana Mendieta and Nancy Spero.
The exhibition opens with beautiful shadow plays with references to the prophetess Cassandra in dialogue with Malani's mural drawings, which disappear in a performance piece. 'The figure of Cassandra has been with me for decades, represents feminine thought, and if we listened to her, we could get closer to progress,' explains the artist via video conference. Her speeches connect rooms and projects; the most recent are the animations she shares on Instagram, with references to power, the end of utopias, and the need to listen to each other across an exhausted planet. 'Earth would need a holiday a few months a year,' she says.