Shahzia Sikander: The Last Post

Through precisely inked and animated scenes, Shahzia Sikander’s video artwork The Last Post (2010) critically considers the legacy of British colonialism in Asia, using her signature approach of infusing Indo-Persian miniature paintings with a contemporary perspective. 

The Last Post centers a European gentleman in a red waistcoat, a symbol of British imperial power. Indian court architecture, Chinese cut-paper silhouettes, and a watercolor map of South Asia all dissolve and reconfigure around him. Artist Shazia Sikander based this figure on miniature paintings from the late eighteenth century depicting British East India Company officials.  

Sikander’s faceless “Company man” and his shifting surroundings allude to that corporation’s expanding presence from the 1600s to the 1800s in South Asia and China, where it blurred state, military, and mercantile power. As images shatter across the screen and electronic beats by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Du Yun explode on the soundtrack, we are invited to viscerally feel the reverberations of imperial activities across continents, oceans, and time.  

The Last Post was recently added to SAAM’s collection as part of a longstanding time-based media art initiative. It is presented in a dedicated gallery for immersive media art installations that opened in 2023. This ten-minute film runs continuously and can be entered at any time.

The presentation is organized by Saisha Grayson, curator of time-based media at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.