The Otolith Group, Santiniketan Studies (A Century Before Us II): Tapovan Study Circle, 2018, digital collage, 13.5 × 20 inches. Courtesy of the artists.
In the molten golden hour, a row of Santhal tribeswomen dance in an open field. Arms interlocked, they bounce as one centipedal body to the beat of a dhol, cymbals, and a purring bamboo flute. The musicians wear flowers in their turbans, while the dancers don expressionless metallic masks that impart an otherworldly timbre to the pastoral scene. This is a particularly gorgeous moment in the Otolith Group’s O Horizon, on view as part of the Rubin Museum’s exhibition A Lost Future. Alongside the film, the London-based artist collective founded by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun presents a series of speculative photographs that collapse time, place, and geography. Ghostly green portals yawn under trees. A portrait of Japanese art critic and ardent nationalist Okakura Kakuzo is superimposed on a statue of pioneering sculptor Ramkinkar Baij, a nod to the anticolonial Pan-Asianism that clashed with cosmopolitanism and eventually congealed as nationalism.
