Shutki (Schüchternfische)*
2022
(*Bengali: dried fish, also connotes dried, emaciated, unhealthily thin. German: ‘shy fish’ (malapropism))
2022, clay, metal, print, pigment
The installation is made of a pair of sculptures in clay and iron together with a print of a video still from the pond next to Brishty’s nanubari (grandma’s house),
Shutki is a Bangladeshi speciality of dried fish or prawns; the kind of dish that can’t to be contained by English brick houses and one that announces if, maybe, you’re still, a bit, Bengali, after all. It is part of an ongoing series of Shutki works, where bodies of solid clay are shaped by their interaction with another material and left to dry. Schüchternfische emerged as a malapropism, whilst learning German, confusing Schuster (Schusterkarpfen, the Austrian cobbler carp) with schüchtern (shy).
– Edited excerpt by Kai Maier-Rothe, Memphis Editions, 2022.
Exhibited at Memphis, Linz (2022) and VAN, Independent Space Index, Vienna. Photos by Brishty Alam & Sophia Hatwagner.