0:00:07.748,0:00:12.498
[Shahzia Sikander: "The Last Post"]

0:00:12.798,0:00:16.815
[layered sounds of music samples, static, and distortion]

0:00:31.748,0:00:39.031
I tend to look into cultural and political boundaries

0:00:39.547,0:00:43.832
and explore, you know, ideas in those boundaries.

0:00:43.832,0:00:47.398
Sometimes it's more obvious, sometimes it's less.

0:00:47.398,0:00:55.782
Sometimes it's more abstract, and sometimes it's far more illustrative of a political idea or thought.

0:00:59.215,0:01:06.315
"The Last Post" plays on the sort of oscillating colonial trade relations

0:01:06.315,0:01:12.581
between China and the East India Company at that time, over opium.

0:01:14.348,0:01:21.732
I started looking at the East India Company and at the company man,

0:01:21.732,0:01:25.999
became like the protagonist who travels throughout India,

0:01:25.999,0:01:29.664
and then ventures into China.

0:01:30.315,0:01:39.498
In this work, it is also referring to the end of the Anglo-Saxon hegemony over China,

0:01:39.514,0:01:42.515
and there is a moment in the animation

0:01:42.515,0:01:50.264
where the symbolic figure of the East India Company man sort of explodes.

0:01:50.515,0:01:53.382
[distorted explosion sound plays]

0:02:02.832,0:02:09.163
There are moments, I think, in the animation that embody some of these concepts,

0:02:09.332,0:02:16.347
but it's not necessarily a liner narrative about this whole opium trade.

0:02:23.547,0:02:28.265
Animations were quite a natural outcome to my process

0:02:28.265,0:02:33.481
because I work in drawing primarily, and a lot of the drawings

0:02:33.481,0:02:41.715
play with the idea of narrative, and movement was just a natural outcome.

0:02:41.715,0:02:49.232
A lot of the murals that I did, a lot of the wall installations, were fairly large, and built in layers,

0:02:49.448,0:02:55.265
and that also was very similar to how a lot of the animation work was constructed,

0:02:55.348,0:02:58.665
which was in Photoshop, in layers.

0:03:03.869,0:03:07.443
[woman singing softly]

0:03:19.715,0:03:25.181
So I'm interested in taking a form, breaking it apart, and then rebuilding it.

0:03:28.232,0:03:30.832
It is about transformation for me,

0:03:30.832,0:03:38.098
whether it is the transformation of the image or a mark or a symbol.

0:03:38.682,0:03:43.248
Or if it's the transformation of a genre or transformation of a medium.

0:03:43.648,0:03:52.965
But it is a very core notion that I think stabilizes my practice.