Amar Kanwar

(b.1964 Delhi, lives in New Delhi)

As part of a major off-site presentation, Amar Kanwar’s work will be shown at Edinburgh’s Old Royal High School.

Originally built in 1826-29 as a school, the building was re-designed in the 1970s as New Parliament House – with the original school assembly hall forming the debating chamber for the envisioned devolved Scottish Assembly.  Although the building was ultimately never used as a site of government it remains strongly associated with Scotland’s recent political history, and in the year of a referendum on independence, (and significant national elections taking place around the world – including India and South Africa) provides a resonant context for a series of artists’ projects which deal with ideas of community, representation and democracy.

Amar Kanwar’s The Sovereign Forest is an ambitious and continually evolving installation exploring illegal mining in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, and the associated destruction of local resources and livelihoods by multinational companies and governments. Through films, texts and collection of objects, Kanwar offers a uniquely poetic record of a community’s struggle against globalisation and large scale displacement, as well as a powerful example of the capacity of an artwork to bear witness. 

Photograph by Stuart Armitt

Amar Kanwar lives and works in New Delhi. Recent solo exhibitions have been at the Art Institute of Chicago, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, TBA 21, Vienna and the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich. Other solo exhibitions have been at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2008; the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 2007; the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, 2006 and the Renaissance Society, Chicago, 2004. Recent group exhibitions in 2013 have been at the 56th Carnegie International, USA; Connecting Unfolding, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea; Animate/Inanimate, Tarra Warra Museum of Art, Victoria, Australia; 13th Istanbul Biennial; 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art; Sharjah Biennale 11; Kochi Biennale, India; No Borders, Bristol Museum, UK and No Country, Guggenheim Museum, New York. Kanwar has also participated in Documenta 11, 12 and 13 in Kassel, Germany, 2002, 2007, 2012. 

Amar Kanwar has been the recipient of awards such as the Edvard Munch Award for Contemporary Art, Norway, an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts, Maine College of Art, USA, Golden Gate Award, San Francisco International Film Festival, the Golden Conch, Mumbai International Film Festival and the MacArthur Fellowship in India. He has also had retrospectives at film festivals including the 5th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, India, 2012; the 13th Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival, India, 2011; the Documentary Dream Show, Tokyo, 2010; the Parallel Perspectives Film Festival, Hyderabad,  2008; and the 9th International Short Film Festival, Bangladesh, 2005.

The Sovereign Forest is open daily during the festival from 10am - 6pm, at the Old Royal High School on Regent Road. 

Baillie Gifford Investment Managers are project sponsors for the installation of works at the Old Royal High School.