Bani Abidi

Artist’s website

Shan Pipe Band learns the Star-spangled Banner, 2004, documents a Pakistani brass pipe band struggling to learn the American national anthem. I commissioned the musicians to learn the piece and videotaped them in their studio while they did so. These bands, which are remnants of the colonial Scottish Pipe Bands, no longer perform for military parades; instead they perform Bollywood tunes at weddings. Pakistan has been a crucial accomplice in the war currently being waged against multiple nations by the United States, and both video works showing at the National Gallery of Victoria address the present political and cultural climate in slightly different ways.

Mangoes’ videostill

‘Mangoe’, (details) video still