Chila Kumari Burman: Beyond Two Cultures

This monograph brings together the work of Chila Kumari Singh Burman from 1980 to 1995. Burman was among a handful of artists whose families had settled in post-war Britain and who emerged from art schools in the early 1980s. Faced with an art establishment unwilling to recognize the individual cultural practices of such artists beyond the stereotypes of ethnicity, Burman became part of a militant vanguard determined to gain their right to full participation in the nations cultural life on their own terms - meaning, amongst other things, self-representation and artistic credibility. Burman has consistently used her own image in an ever-expanding repertoire of provocative and active female identities, complementing her artwork with polemical texts, curating exhibitions and community art projects.