In Search of Vanished Blood

In Search of Vanished Blood is a single channel video play that extends Malani’s considered exploration of violence, the regenerative power of myth, the feminine voice and the geopolitics of national identity. The work is titled after the Urdu poem Lahu Ka Surag by revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and references the novel Cassandra by Christa Wolf as well as Rainer Maria Rilke’s book The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. The soundscape comprises collaged texts from Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine, Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s translation into English of the story Draupadi by writer Mahasweta Devi. While referencing the place of women in Indian society, this work translates across cultures, time and locale in its interrogation of issues relating to justice, gender and their representation.