Salt Cosmologies

This film follows artist duo Hylozoic/Desires (Himali Singh Soin & David Soin Tappeser) as they speculate on the complex weave of history and myth that surrounds the Great Hedge of India, a 4,000km hedge used to enforce Britain's imperial salt monopoly in India in the 1800s. A source of widespread suffering, Britain’s salt tax was used to extract enormous profits from the continent. It is thought that the hedge was installed to clamp down on salt smugglers although, as the artists highlight, there is no visual evidence of it in the archives.

Considering their role as speculative truth-tellers, Hylozoic/Desires share the journey of their Somerset House commission, reflecting on the reliability of archives and how this process has been a source of healing from the painful legacies of colonialism.