لوٹ | लूट | Loot

Through a convergence of found footage, text, and sound, this film explores the relational power, intersecting politics, and layered histories embedded within one particular word. First incorporated into the English language during the British Raj, “loot” comes from Hindi and Urdu where it technically has the same meaning, “to steal”. However, while in English the word is used almost solely to describe unlawful activity, in the subcontinent it is very popularly used in romantic and devotional songs and poetry to describe a more positive act of theft, the theft of one’s heart.

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In Loot, clips of stern American news reporters covering the protests following the killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 in which “looters'' are being criminalized, are woven in with footage of Hindi film songs in which crowds of people are jubilantly singing and dancing while identifying the “looters” as their lovers. This palimpsestic montage of footage is further interrupted by open captions with excerpts from op-eds and essays discussing the ongoing controversies surrounding objects in Western museums that were “collected” or stolen from colonial countries, reminding viewers that along with objects, language too was stolen and weaponized. Also, throughout the video, the sound is modulated and disturbed by static, as though one is tuning a radio through which the information delivered is always distant and incomplete, much like the appropriation of language. By simultaneously mining, reclaiming, and disrupting media’s representational modes and strategies, this work not only complexifies the definition of “looting” beyond simple acts of theft but asks questions about who is the “looter” and who is being “looted”? Furthermore, the work presents the possibility of looting being a radical opening to a productive, erotic, and insurgent solidarity across the global South.