Shanka. Multichannel installation + Original Score + Performance
Shanka is a five-screen installation and original score, comissioned as part of The Box Museum and Gallery's Reimagining the BFI Film Archive programme. Sood's installation brought attention to the power of music in the lives of displaced individuals thanks to a poignant collaboration with British-Asian vocalist Satnam Galsian, who, along with Sood, reinterpreted the traditional Punjabi folk song 'Jutti Kasoori' as part of the commission.
Shankha creates a narrative and collective memory between two different BFI archival films: a post-partition missionary documentary shot in various parts of India; and a 1972 news feature about the relocation of displaced Indians or ‘Ugandan Asians’ to resettlement camps in Heathfield, Devon. Sood draws on the conch shell (Shankha) as an auspicious sonic vessel to explore interconnected and conflicting narratives of partition, displacement, class, and nation. The work features spoken word and new musical compositions spliced with original archival audio, creating a sonic memory between different communities affected by partition and its consequential legacies.