Mokshapat Snakes and Ladders

Mixed-media collage 'Mokshapat Snakes and Ladders' by Chila Kumari Burman , 2017, showing an embellished board game of snakes and ladders with tassles along the bottom edge. The frame embellished with mirror pieces.

Made of card board, cotton cloth tassles, felt bindis, rhinestones, glitter, rubber letters, paper, diamante.

Snakes and ladders was invented in India and passed to the West. Here Burman embellishes a modern Western board game. It forms a pair with the piece 'Sapaa and Pauri', which features a board of traditional Indian design (2019-171).

One of 29 works produced by Burman as a commission to accompany the Science Museum’s ‘Illuminating India’ season in 2017-18. The works respond to objects and narratives in the history of science in India particularly to the exhibition ‘5000 Years of Science and Innovation’, as well as to the wider religious and cultural history of the sub-continent. This was Burman's first significant engagement with the history of science and medicine, with the works ranging across print, collage, photography and mixed-media, including experiments with iPad technology.