The Turbine Bagh project emerged from an urgency to respond to incidents of mass arrests and incarcerations over the last few years in India and Bangladesh, with both countries currently under neo-fascist regimes. The nomenclature is two-fold, with the prefix coming from the project’s initial plans to be staged as a one-day protest performance on the premises of Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London, in 2020 (postponed due to the COVID-19 imposed lockdown). The suffix “Bagh” is drawn from Shaheen Bagh—the site of the peaceful mass protests led primarily by Muslim women in Delhi against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 that threatens to demolish the secular fabric of the Constitution by covertly discriminating against the Muslim population residing in India. Initiated by Sofia Karim, the Turbine Bagh project gained traction through word-of-mouth, staging on museum grounds, social media dissemination and cross-border ally-ship. (more)
