Nep Sidhu, the rising Scarborough art star’s solo exhibition at Mercer Union opened on February 9th, 2019, highlights the resilience of Sikh communities using large-scale textiles and metalwork. The artist says it took him three years to bring the exhibition together. The artist is intensely committed to the craft.
(Nep ) Nirbhai Singh Sidhu is a British (active in Canada) artist who was born in 1981. He is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Toronto, ON, Canada. Numerous significant galleries and museums have featured Nep Sidhu's work in the past. He and curator Cheyanne Turions have worked together on ‘Medicine For A Nightmare (they called, we reacted)’.
Some of his high-profile followers include Erykah Badu, who wore his non-commercial clothing line, Paradise Sportif, and attended his Mercer Union opening, and Ishmael Butler of Shabazz Palaces, his colleague in creative collaborative Black Constellation. Sidhu’s interconnected pinball machines were a centrepiece of MOCA's inaugural Believe show, and his exhibits are also displayed at the Aga Khan Museum, York University's Art Gallery, and the Heard Museum in Phoenix.
Nep Sidhu’s exhibition
The exhibition showcases Sidhu's eclectic practice and includes large-scale textiles, metalwork, painting, and sculpture. ‘Medicine For A Nightmare’ examines Sikh culture, tradition, and preservation, as well as how memories are inherited and passed down. These themes are explored in the context of the 1984 genocide of Sikhs in India. This military action, known as Operation Blue Star, resulted in the deaths of thousands of Sikhs.
The raid took place at the Harmandir Sahib, a Sikh sacred site, and was organised by the Indian government to oppose activist movements that attempted to address the impoverished economic, social, and political circumstances of life for Sikh people in India. Sidhu's exhibition asserts Sikh endurance, both as a tribute to their faith and in response to harsh political brutalities.
One of the exquisite tapestries created by the Scarborough artist took an entire year to complete. He worked both in his "mobile workshop" in New Delhi and his Malvern studio to bring his masterpiece to completion.
Art pieces representing Sikh history
For his other artworks, Nep Sidhu spent hundreds of hours engraving metal amulets and pendants that embellish what he calls "medicine hats" and delicately embroidering designs of swords and sound waves onto muslin.
The centrepiece of the exhibition, a 220-by-108-inch tapestry from the collection ‘When My Drums Come Knocking They Watch’, symbolizes the attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, in 1984 and the tenacity displayed by the Sikh communities.
The tapestry portrays two men preparing to enter Hazur Sahib, a sacred Sikh Temple, with curtains pushed back as if welcoming the observer into the area, surrounded by a patchwork of needlework and paint. The tapestry is filled with swaths of jagged waves and embroidered swords - a reference to the power of Sikh steel - while black hair braided into jute macramé hangs from the bottom.
“ ‘When My Drums Come Knocking They Watch’ looks toward Sikhs as people who were saved by our sense of percussions, whether it’s the sound of swords or the cleaning of plates in the temple’s free kitchens,” says Sidhu.
Another sculpture in the exhibition, "Formed At The Divine, Divine Of Form," is an allusion of langar, the free meals provided in Sikh temples. It illustrates the community service principles that Sikh temple kitchens uphold and foster cooperation through the practice of seva (selfless service).
The sculpture, a concrete monolithic rectangle with geometric brass ribbons and an imprint of Guru Nanak's hand, weighs close to 3,000 pounds. It represents the transference of knowledge from one generation to the next. Its base is surrounded with dirt from Toronto and the Golden Temple. On a nearby wall, a sizable photograph taken by Sidhu on a recent trip to India depicts stacks of cooking plates from the Hazur Sahib.
Sidhu while describing the sculpture says that he wanted to create something that would not allow those who have been impacted from being forgotten. He says that he intended it to be a tool that recharges memory.
The two rooms at Mercer Union are filled with a spirit of remembrance and endurance, and each artwork there calls attention to ancestry, whether it is Sikh traditions or Sidhu's own family's history of operating a metalwork shop in Scarborough.
Magnificent amulet: A representation of Operation Blue Star
The amulet ‘The Books And The Scripts Were Stolen, Our Steel Is Forever’ alludes to the plundering of the central library during Operation Blue Star, where valuable books and manuscripts documenting the histories of the religions and people surrounding Sikhism were stolen.
Sidhu explains that he has carved that history into an impermeable material, steel, to preserve it. He describes how Sikh metallurgy originated in Rwanda, whose inhabitants subsequently passed on their skills to Sri Lanka, which was then passed on to Punjab. The artist further says that the arrows on the amulet represent the Sri Lankan Chera dynasty, the sword represents Rwanda, and the symbol ‘Ik Onkar’ means one supreme reality. It displays the holy text of Mool Mantras, and Sidhu shares his views about the same saying, “A very simple few lines, but the absolute tenets of Sikhism.”
Sidhu hopes the exhibition will unite the Sikh community in Toronto because this is the first time his art has focused on the aftermath of the 1984 massacre.
Sidhu said, “The intention is to hopefully create a sustainable conversation. I’m not interested in the show presenting itself as any one answer, because exhibitions come up and come down,”
“We as a community have felt the weight of such an event, so if we’re going to talk about it, we have to ensure that we not just sit inside our trauma, but also deal with the healing.” he added.
The exhibition served as an invitation for healing via shared experiences for some visitors. It also served as a trigger for memories of personal and generational trauma for others.
Nep has crafted his tapestries and his tales with deftness, attention, and love. Through his art, the Sikhs' suffering and devastation as well as their tenacity are immortalised. Through his painstaking effort, he has spread his message and kept history alive.
*Based on an article in NOW by Samantha Edwards /Feb 12, 2019