• Issue
  • Sep 01, 2022

Nalini Malani: The Act of Remembering

Detailed installation view of Remembering Mad Meg, 2007-19, four-channel video installation with sound, 16 light projections, eight reverse painted Mylar cylinders, dimensions variable, at "Vision in Motion," M+, Hong Kong, 2022. Photo by Lok Cheng and Dan Leung/M+. Courtesy the artist and M+.

Widely recognized as a leading figure of moving-image art, Nalini Malani is best known for her layered video-and-shadow installations, experimental animations, and multipanel reverse paintings on Mylar. While her practice continues to evolve as she embraces new technologies and ways of working, her commitment to investigating the effects of war, violence, and the repression of women remains consistent. Her exhibition “Vision in Motion,” curated by Doryun Chong, deputy director and chief curator of M+, became the inaugural presentation in The Studio, a cavernous, subterranean space in the Hong Kong museum. Additionally, in early August, Malani debuted the commissioned work In Search of Vanished Blood (2012/2022) on the M+ Facade, and Life (2022), M+’s first commission specifically for Instagram. In August, I sat down with Malani during her brief visit to Hong Kong. Our conversation touched on her earliest influences, the dangers of historical amnesia, and why now more than ever humanity needs the female perspective on a safer and more inclusive society.