In Synapse, Sutapa Biswas produces a series of B&W photo-murals with superimpositions of her body giving the effect of floating or disembodied female forms that trace the stone surface of an Eastern temple. These works insert themselves into what has now become a familiar discussion of the exotic other.

“Synapse in medical terms is the anatomical relation of one nerve cell with another, the junction at which a nerve impulse is transferred, which is affected at various points by contact of their branching processes. The state of shrinkage or relaxation at these points (synapses) is supposed in some cases to determine the readiness with which a nervous impulse is transmitted from one part of the nervous system to another”…

Biswas stresses “the notion of synapse as a metaphor for the human condition with particular reference to the experience of memory. Synapse here is symbolic of an undefined territory or space. Memory is itself of a shifting nature, vivid in places, with blind spots. Desire becomes an important element in this process. Sometimes connected to real experience, conceptually it is an imagined space or territory.”

excerpts taken from Reading Between the Lines: The Imprinted Spaces of Sutapa Biswas by Moira Roth

– Sutapa Biswas

Catalogue essays by Griselda Pollack, Brian Mulvihill, Moira Roth