For the fourth edition of the annual Winter Commission, Tate Britain decided to let multi- media artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman (although she doesn’t like boxes) do her thing with the museum’s iconic facade. With the Dadaism art-movement as a big source of inspiration and vivid colours as a constant base, her art is quite accessible and appealing to many. Yet it is worth knowing where her work actually stands for.

For this year’s Winter Commission, it almost feels like Chila Kumari Singh Burman wanted her work to be even more colourful than everything else she has already done before. Perhaps she knew that given the bizarre times, London was in desperate need of a giant neon disco-ball to light up the streets. Yet the Tate Britain’s facade, decorated with tigers and mermaids, has a strong political undertone. She replaced the symbol of British imperialism into the Hindu goddess Kali, who embodies liberation and power. She also refers to our colonial past by including Lakshmibai, a female Indian rebel who became a symbol of resistance to the British Raj in the 19th and 20th century.

Feminism and dual identity

The origin of this message is obvious. Chila Kumari Singh Burman (63) was born and raised in Liverpool, but is a Desi. In the traditional Indo-European language Sanskrit, Desi meant ‘Country’. Over the years the meaning has shifted to people, culture and more. Despite the fact that it is a loose term, everyone agrees on the origin: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Chila’s parents are originally from the Punjab region. With its poetry, literature and most importantly the invention of the Sanskrit, the Punjabi culture was culturally and linguistically always a step ahead of the rest. Given the rich cultural background that’s tightly intertwined with her roots, Chila’s strong internal connection with art doesn’t surprise.

Chila Kumari Singh Burman has two main sources of inspiration: feminism in South-Asia and her dual identity. The latter is a continual exploration. In her work, she likes to challenge assumptions and stereotypes of Asian woman — how they express themselves regardless of how they are expected to look, for example. She is always balancing between a few things: pop culture, Bollywood, her Indian roots and her hometown Liverpool. In other words: her work constantly draws upon the culture that created her and the culture that shaped her.

Surrealism with glitters on top

Kumari doesn’t like to focus on just one thing. She does all kinds of stuff. With all kinds of stuff. Varying from pearls she found in a corner shop to a random piece of fabric - if the colour’s nice at least. She likes to experiment with both the medium and the materials she uses. Her Auto-portrait is a mix of drawings and pictures, and it makes us question the concept of a photograph. The two mediums flow into each other in such a way that they reinforce each other as well as undermine the boundary between them. Her Eat Me Now ice cream cone, on the other hand, is based on childhood memories of her dad driving around with an ice cream van to make ends meet. (One of the things the man had to do to establish his life in the United Kingdom as an immigrant, apart from inventing a random British surname in order to have more job-opportunities.) The sculpture of the ice cream cone has been completely disproportioned, with its toppings reaching nose height. Not only questions the work the meaning of art, it also summarises the core of the majority of her work: surrealism with glitters on top.


Her paintings as well as her audiovisual work, can leave you with a feeling of not knowing where to look first. The high amount of impulses are probably the ones to blame. (For the latter, she once merged colourful visuals of a dancing woman with a typical South-Asian Techno-Bhangra beat. The result alternated between a 90's music video and a groovy commercial.)

Equally, Chila Kumari Singh Burman has continued that clear trend for the Tate Britain's annual Winter Commission. The result turned out to be a luminous exhibition that can be seen from a kilometre distance. However, don’t let the overwhelming shapes, colours and hidden messages fool you — given the political and societal aspect to it, the chaos is never disorganised.