Kirloskar Visiting Scholar Mithu Sen Brings Lingual Anarchy to RISD

Nervous laughter trickles through the sixth-floor painting studio where a small group of students has gathered for an undefined workshop led by visiting artist Mithu Sen. The New Delhi–based conceptual artist addresses the group in an invented language punctuated by sibilant esses, clicks and pops. She appears to be delivering instructions.

Projected slides written in English then invite each participant to address the group in their own nonsensical tongue so that they might rise above the constrictions of language. Sen’s “practice of non-language” creates moments she describes as “lingual anarchy” and employs glitch, noise and sonic affect in its spontaneous creation.

“My practice is shaped by ideas of perpetual unsettlement and constant becoming.”

Visiting Artist Mithu Sen

The conceptual artist explores myths of identity and their intersection with the structures of our world, primarily through performance. In her own words, she challenges “hierarchies and conventions with particular reference to myths of language, sexuality, market and marginalization… obscuring societal codes and tangling with the politics of language and the body, conventions of society and polite impositions of the art world.”

“Mithu’s work is complex and escapes easy categorization, which for me at least, also happens to be one of its main attractions,” says Literary Arts and Studies Department Head Avishek Ganguly, who helped to organize Sen’s three-week visit to campus in October. “Her work with language playfully destabilizes the binary configuration of native and non-native speakers, creating an uncanny experience of incomprehension.”

“We came together across departments and divisions and worked together to bring Mithu here,” adds Painting Department Head Angela Dufresne. “Supporting her visit is part of my commitment to promoting performance-oriented work at RISD.” 

Sen was invited to campus as part of the Kirloskar Visiting Scholar in Painting program, which was established in 2013 by Vikram and Geetanjali Kirloskar in an effort to connect the RISD community with South Asia-based artists and practices. Led by longtime Painting Professor Dennis Congdon 75 PT, the Kirloskar advisory group has sponsored visits and lectures by such diverse South Asian artists and scholars as the Raqs Media Collective (2015), Pallavi Paul (2017) and Rina Banerjee (2023).

“The Kirloskar grant… offers our students fresh thinking and wider horizons, at home and abroad,” says Congdon. “Kirloskar support has fostered new work, new liaisons and new avenues of study.”

Sen’s engagement also included studio visits with RISD students; meetings with faculty members and students from Brown, URI and Providence College; a panel discussion about her unique practice with visiting scholars Sa’dia Rehman and Karin Zitzewitz; and two performance/interventions inside the RISD Museum supported by the Robert L. Turner Theatrical and Performance Design Fund. “I am inspired by poetry and philosophy and consider poetry to be my mother tongue,” Sen said at the well-attended discussion of her work. “My practice is shaped by ideas of perpetual unsettlement and constant becoming.”

The museum interventions addressed themes of looting and repatriation. In one, the Buddha Shakyamuni is released by the museum and wanders the galleries, saying goodbye to visitors and other works on view while contemplating the confusion of being unable to return to the lost civilization of Gandhara. “Repatriation is a huge issue for museums today,” says Director of Public Programs Deborah Clemons, who facilitated Sen’s pop-up performances. “I really appreciate the complexity she brings to these issues.” 

Simone Solondz
November 16, 2023