It’s fair to say NS Harsha’s grand-scale installation at Iniva is causing something of a stir in Old Street. Sharp-suited city workers on their cigarette breaks are stopping mid-puff to double-take, trendy East London fashionistas are slowing their manic pace to soak it all up, and tourists are reaching for their cameras. But, with 192 sewing machines overlaid with the flags of the United Nations, connected via a delicate web of colourful thread and stacked to the ceiling of this glass-fronted gallery space, who can blame them.
Immediate reaction to Nations, which was original exhibited in Shanghai and then the Middle East, would be to assume Harsha is making a statement about the poor social conditions of the labour industry. However, after a well-informed chat with the Indian artist, I learn this is just the “convenient conclusion”.
“I was initially inspired by my tailor and then I visited a small textile factory, but, the work is not necessarily a direct statement about sweat-shops, that’s just a beginning reference point,” he explains. “I would say, if you complain about one social condition it’s too comfortable for an art piece. I like to push it much further, and then it becomes a loose celebration of forms and colours, and the visual development that happens as an artist.”
On another level, Harsha is concerned with the metaphor of the flag. Speaking about what he calls “the triggers for his poetry”.
The 40-year-old recalls: “Around the same time I visited the factory, I saw an image in the newspaper where a man was stitching a national flag. I decided to paint that small act of stitching that nation and the idea of nation building and the labour we put in.”
Research then took Harsha to the website for the United Nations and the discovery of a children’s book featuring all 192 flags of the UN.
“The book was full of mistakes,” he laughs, “and I just wanted to celebrate that.”
In response, Harsha, who was recipient of the prestigious Artes Mundi Prize in 2008, painted all 192 flags as they were represented in the book – mistakes and all.
“I found it amusing to paint them, while at the same time I decided the flags should be painted because painting blurs the edges, and there are no strong borders in these flags.”
In previous exhibitions, the positioning of the flags has caused problems. For example in China, the Chinese flag ended up next to a Japanese flag and the United Arab Emirates don't recognise Israel as a country. However, Harsha insists he has no intention of making a political statment.
"There is a fantastic opportunity to make a front page because of how you position the flags, but it's boring, it's really boring to get involved in hotspot debates. I have no interest. The poetics of life is much more important than the poetics of politics."
One of the main focal points of the installation is the colourful web of thread. In some places straight, direct lines, in others complicated and tangled, I ask Harsha what it represents.
“It all started when I put the flags on two different machines. They were now talking to each other visually as well as in an artistic sense and I really wanted to complicate it a little bit, so I criss-crossed the thread. For example, the thread from one nation starts stitching someone else’s. It’s a celebration of communication but at the same time a celebration of the beauty of differences, I think it’s important to celebrate both.”
With so many deliberate layers to the piece, what, if anything, does Harsha want his audience to take away from his work?
“For me, the best thing happens when people look through the glass wall and they laugh and smile,” he muses. “They are busy going somewhere and they just look with some amusement. Though it poses to be a serious issue, people smile at it and I love that contradiction.”
Nations runs at Iniva, Rivington Place, London, until Saturday, November 21. Details: 020 7729 9619, www.iniva.org
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article