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M+, Hong Kong, © Nalini Malani
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Mediatheque
Nalini Malani 納里尼．馬拉尼
Still Life 靜物
1969
Belying its title, Nalini Malani’s short film Still Life is anything but static. Beginning with a sequence of shots of an interior window, the camera gradually reveals a view of the city outside. The film then journeys through the interior of the artist’s residence as if cataloguing the rooms and their contents. Long, slow-moving shots are intercut with close details—window hardware, an electric ceiling fan spinning into motion—that lend heightened significance to the mundane features of the home. Partway through the film, a series of quick edits shows clothing being tossed haphazardly onto furniture from out of frame, hinting at some intimate, unseen narrative.
After obtaining a degree in painting in Mumbai, Malani began to incorporate film into her practice. Her participation in the interdisciplinary Vision Exchange Workshop, founded by the painter Akbar Padamsee, was a formative experience. Still Life captures some of Malani’s earliest formal experiments in film. This important work also hints at her interest in women’s domestic lives, which has become a core theme in her oeuvre.
After obtaining a degree in painting in Mumbai, Malani began to incorporate film into her practice. Her participation in the interdisciplinary Vision Exchange Workshop, founded by the painter Akbar Padamsee, was a formative experience. Still Life captures some of Malani’s earliest formal experiments in film. This important work also hints at her interest in women’s domestic lives, which has become a core theme in her oeuvre.
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