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What Remains Alive

Standing in front of the works by Sammy Baloji's Kasala, I felt myself exposed to echoes — of memory, loss, and survival. Red screens throbbed with ominous lines: "When statues die, they go down in art." It made me stop and think about how often culture is preserved by freezing it, draining it of its life and context. Baloji's work was a kind of restoration — a giving voice to the formerly silenced, letting the past speak again in image and poetry. I was moved by how he employs ancient traditions with new technology to create something at once elegiac and urgent. As we left, we carried with us the gentle question: how do we remember without diminishing life to a museum piece?

 

 

Object:
We werestruck by how Baloji gives these “silent” objects a new voice, blending history, poetry, and technology to question how we remember the past. It felt like an act of healing.

 

Lieu:
Museum Rietberg, Zürich

 

TiMer*in:
Simran Bansal

 

Tgi che nus essan:
Shaifali Veda

 

I visited the Museum with my mother and we simultaneously stopped in the digital presence of Sammy Baloji Kasala. As we gradually made our way out of the Museum there was a shared calmness in the silence between us both, reflecting on the memories travelled.

 

2025