Sharad Das’s installation, ‘The Red Pillow’, at the Cheragi Art Show 7, 2019.
The Red Pillow
Interview with Sharad Das by Emilie Flower and Ruth Kelly
My work is related to the history of dislocation. It’s about dislocated objects, dislocated people; the whole world shifting, dislocating, from one place to another place, one culture to another culture.
There is a special soap that is common in our city; it comes from the Rohingya camp, it’s relief soap. What happened is that city people started to buy and use that kind of soap. I see this kind of attitude, activity as a manifestation of dislocation in our daily life.
I started thinking about what dislocation actually is; dislocation of civilization and culture and people. I started collecting relief objects: different kind of soap, napkins, pads—sanitary pads—all visually and materially very different from what we previously had. So, in this piece I used many different objects as a metaphor of dislocation.
I used a red pillow—a common red pillow, the kind we use in our beds. I think this is also a political pillow. Where the pillow is put in our bed depends on my relationship to my wife or to my better half. When the relationship is going down or going bad, the pillow will be put between us. And when the relationship is good, the pillow will be banished. So, I took a pillow—a little bit bigger than a normal pillow—and made it red, a political colour. I made it red and stood a superhero on this red pillow.
I used the portraits of seven political figures; superpower holders. I showed them with their eyes closed, to show that they are sleeping, they are ignoring the problems of our world, of dislocation. I also used a video about brushing your teeth, to say in a funny way that if you want to brush your teeth, then you have to wake up, and when you wake up the problem will be solved.
I used small, everyday things as a metaphor. I didn't want to talk directly. I wanted to connect with the audience, to have a political dialogue, a parallel dialogue.
The pillow is a very, very common thing. But I used it as a political metaphor, an object to start a dialogue, to start a political dialogue from a pillow. Why not? Because everything is political.
The people who viewed the work talked and talked about it. They were very curious about the pillow. Because it's very common to them. They thought it was funny. They wanted to know why the pillow was red and why it was so big and who was the owner of that pillow.
Chittagong, December 2019