The Art of Dislocation

"Grounded in years of fieldwork and incisive readings of artworks and their social and cultural contexts, The Art of Dislocation is unmatched in geographic scope and methodological ambition. It is a magisterial study of emergent noncommercial and alternative artistic practices across South Asia. Sonal Khullar situates visual practice alongside literary and poetic traditions that imagine futures beyond established categories and divisions in South Asia. She shows how a space for dialogue and reflection emerges through the embodied practices of artists, communities, and critics, drawing on feminist thought and debates around citizenship and the public sphere."—Iftikhar Dadi, author of Lahore Cinema: Between Realism and Fable

"The great virtue of The Art of Dislocation is, precisely, its dislocation. Khullar approaches contemporary South Asian art from sites other than India’s dominant metropolitan centers, positing the region—capaciously framed—as a space of critical collaboration in response to ongoing legacies of conflict. This generative dislocation is also methodological: Khullar’s readings of a rich range of artworks and art spaces, grounded in a decade of fieldwork, draw on multiple disciplines and a salutary attunement to South Asian literatures."—Kajri Jain, author of Gods in the Time of Democracy

"The Art of Dislocation examines how contemporary art confronts South Asia's fractured borders, tracing the forms and spaces that shape artistic practice throughout the region. Through this lens, the book presents art’s generative capacity to push against political boundaries and galvanize publics across deeply seated social divides."—Saloni Mathur, author of A Fragile Inheritance: Radical Stakes in Contemporary Indian Art