MA‐NA‐VA‐REH – Love, Loss and Pre‐Nuptials in the Time of the Big Debate, by Malaysian-Indian artist Anurendra Jegadeva, is a work both deeply autobiographical and broadly socio-historical in scope. The central feature of the installation is a wedding altar (called a manavarai in Tamil), which actually resembles rather an altar dedicated to the gods that one finds in Hindu households. Adorning this structure are numerous images of the artist’s parents, who were married in 1957, as well as images and objects – including two-dimensional works hung on the walls around the altar – pertaining to social customs, religious life and, most of all, political realities in contemporary Malaysia. The central analogy here, of course, is between two forms of marriage: the first, the nuptials between the artist’s parents that occurred in the year of Merdeka (the country gained independence from British colonial rule in 1957), and, at a symbolic level, the political manoeuvrings and compromises – a marriage, in other words – that birthed Malaysia as an independent nation.
