Killscreen is pleased to announce The Concentric Fictions of a Generous History, the first Los Angeles solo exhibition for the India-based game design studio Studio Oleomingus and its founder Dhruv Jani. The inaugural exhibition presents a collection of interactive fragments that seek to translate the ouroboric writings of a Gujarati diarist, Mir Umar Hassan, into short tales of memory, loss, and identity.
The works in this collection respond to the current autocratic dispensation in India, which seeks to exclude and include citizens in a way that erases uncomfortable truths and defends unfortunate lies. Each story grieves the destructions of places of entangled heritage, examining lynchings and the arrests of dissenting voices while further confronting the religious and doctrinal violence perpetuated on fragile bodies and communities.
The games in the exhibition become a study of communal truths and fears, exploring the discomfort between the definitions of a state and the desires of an individual. Here, interactive fiction becomes a vector of irreverent social and political discourse, borrowing from Indian traditions of street theater and vagabond performances.
The exhibition attempts to create a space for the recollection and reanimation of fissured tales, celebrating the fractured records of subaltern history and confronting the political legacy of appropriation and power. Studio Oleomingus believes confronting history is knowing that our ability to remember is polluted and that any single account is always a vacuous record. It is the concentric fictions of our lives that make all history bearable.
The Concentric Fictions of a Generous History will be on view at Killscreen until April 30th, 2023, by appointment only. The opening reception and public opening of the gallery will be held on March 24th, 2023, from 6-9pm.
