Shilpa Gupta

'Unnoticed', a series of work by Gupta made from used car parts that are carried illicitly across the Indo-Bangladesh border, to have a second life when assembled into improvised vehicles on the other side. Placed against photographs of a blue sky taken along borderlands, they are aloft, sculptural forms freed from a mundane existence.

This series of works is an extension of the 'My East is Your West' project she developed for the 2015 Venice Biennale. In late 2016 Gupta returned to parts around the border fence that India is building, encircling its neighbour Bangladesh and that is notorious for being the world’s longest separation barrier under construction between two nation states. However, says the artist, “daily life in the borderland belies state intentions and the flows of people and goods continue, prompted by historical and social affinities, geographical continuity and economic imperative". In the end, as the work reminds us that human ingenuity thwarts restrictions.