Sultana’s Dream on view at Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester
December 17, 2021–June 5, 2022
The project Sultana’s Dream was inspired by the Bengali Muslim feminist writer Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s early 20th-century story of the same title (read it here); The prints–all black linocuts on tan paper—both illustrate elements of the text and use its imagery and themes to explore urgent topics of the political present.
Far from merely illustrating Hossain’s text, however, the portfolio, in the artist’s words, “connects with problems shaping 21st-century life: apocalyptic environmental disaster, the disturbing persistence of gender-based inequality, the power of the wealthy few against the economic struggles of the majority, and ongoing geopolitical conflicts that cause widespread death and suffering.” Like much of Ganesh’s work, Sultana’s Dream engages these subjects through the lens of history, literature, and mythology not only to examine the relationship between imagined and lived worlds but also to consider how utopian fantasies might be realized.