Tongue ਚੈਨਲ, Installation, duo work in collaboration with Pahul Singh
Monotypes, printed text and inkjet print on kitakata, tengujo and mitsumata washi, video projection, 26 scrolls, 14 x 182cm (each), 2025
In this work, Pahul Singh and I meet in the historical rupture of Punjabi during the Partition, when it was split into two scripts: Gurmukhi in Indian Punjab and Shahmukhi in Pakistani Punjab. This division, where a shared spoken tongue became mutually illegible in writing, spoke of the ways language could be fractured, estranged, or rendered unfamiliar. Our preoccupations with the Punjabi language, and a growing sense of distance from it, initiated an inquiry into what happens when one’s mother tongue encounters the unfamiliar and the strange. Produced and shown as a part of Serendipity Arts Festival, 10th Edition, Goa, curated by Vidya Shivadas.
Photo 2 Credit: Serendipity Arts Festival
ਤੁਸੀਂ ਮੈਨੂੰ ਹੋਰ ਟਰਾਂਸਲੇਟ ਨਾ ਕਰੋ।
[you] [to][me] [more] [translate] [no] [do]
[please] [do] [not] [translate] [me] [anymore]
The “ee / ī” in the Punjabi ਜੀਭ is a long vowel. Its length comes from an absence: when the neighboring vowels disappear over time, the ‘e’ stays longer and fills the silence. In Tongue ਚੈਨਲ, we walk together in a shared linguistic distance that forms when one’s native language has been erased or has started to fade.
here, unfamiliar words hunch
they step on each other's toes
they erase a little bit of each other
they touch, and are absent together.
they do not speak.
here, our tongue is in translation.
we pass through many versions of our ਜੀਭ that have existed before us,
our body is enveloped by them.
we live in excess, and waste.
here, something always escapes,
[a word] spills over [a sound] refuses to cross.
ਮੇਰੀ ਜੀਭ ‘ਚ ਠੰਡ ਪੈ ਗੀ ‘ਐ,
ਤੁਸੀਂ ਮੈਨੂੰ ਹੋਰ ਟਰਾਂਸਲੇਟ ਨਾ ਕਰੋ।
ਮੇਰੀ ਜੀਭ ਹੋਰ ਜੀਭਾਂ ‘ਚ ਫੱਸ ਗੀ ‘ਐ,
ਤੁਸੀਂ ਮੈਨੂੰ ਹੋਰ ਟਰਾਂਸਲੇਟ ਨਾ ਕਰੋ।
ਇਹਨਾਂ ਸ਼ਬਦਾਂ ਚ, meaning remains unused, untranslatable, too abundant to contain.
Translation generates both excess [what cannot be held] and residue [what remains behind], revealing the traces of what language cannot fully carry.
Here, the language is suspended in space, awaiting activation by the body.