Thrice-produced German film Das Indische Grabmal (1921, 1938,1959) and its second part Der Tiger von Eschnapur (1921, 1938,1959) might be the best in-stance of visual culture’s legitimation of colonial desire. In the ways of archeological rediscovery, referring to this film, Sajan Mani defines Indianness as an ambiguous cultural construct made in Europe and assembled in India.
As an artist now living in Berlin who is a local of Kerala, South India, Sajan has been facing the question: “Are you really Indian, we have seen Indians on TV and they are fairer?” Unleashing his liminal angst in answer, the artist carefully selects the architectural blunders, cultural appropriation, and racial coalescence of exoticiza-tion and othering embodied in the film and makes a potpourri of visceral images with video-texts.