Remembering Mad Meg is one of Malani’s most impactful works and exemplifies the artist’s style. She uses animation, light projections, sounds and eight hypnotic rotating cylinders, on which she painted a series of figures to create a dramatic shadow effect. One of these figures is taken from the Flemish folktale of Dulle Griet (aka Mad Meg), a character depicted in renowned northern European renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s 1563 painting of the same name. In the painting, Meg is seen storming the gates of hell, armed with kitchen utensils, cleaning equipment and other domestic items traditionally associated with women. For Malani, this evokes the idea of literally cleansing the landscape from extreme hardship and violence.

By reinterpreting significant historical and mythical female figures, Malani champions women’s perspectives, offering an opportunity for the reconsideration of, and healing from, the dominant patriarchal mindset and the violence and inequality it perpetuates. Remembering the past is also an important element in how Malini reimagines the future, particularly in terms of offering opportunities to reconcile with trauma. Although she was young at the time, Malani experienced the turbulent and violent India-Pakistan partition, when she had to emigrate from India to Pakistan.

This sentiment is channelled through Remembering Mad Meg’s use of cylinders, which function like Buddhist prayer wheels and promote a calming effect. Her use of shadows (drawn from South and Southeast Asian theatre traditions) mimics the way memory functions, as she controls the translucency and opacity of the shadows by how much paint she applies to the cylinders. According to the artist, an opaque shadow can soothe blinding light, just as our psyche can mitigate more painful memories.

Her signature use of shadows and embrace of film and digital media has earned Malani, now 76, significant stature within contemporary art. She is part of a group of female Asian moving image art pioneers who have finally been given their due in recent months through M+ exhibitions: as well as Malani, there’s Ellen Pau, whose Shape of Light film (co-commissioned by Art Basel) is screened on the M+ Façade, and Angela Su, whose presentation Arise was showcased at this year’s Venice Biennale.

Despite their drastically different practices, Chong notes there is a common thread running through their work that makes them more relevant than ever: “In our times of upheaval and crisis, they offer healing and empathy.”

 Nalini Malani: Vision in Motion is on view until September 4

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