REVIEW: Alia Syed: "Eating Grass" @ Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Set among the pre-modern Indian paintings and Hindu and Buddhist sculptures of LACMA’s South and Southeast Asia wing, Alia Syed’s Eating Grass (2003) is a dreamy filmic experience. “I dreamt of red wine,” says a female voice in a gentle timbre, ushering the viewer into a reverie that melds storytelling, memories, dreams, poetry and history all into one. This decade-old work, shot in London, Lahore and Karachi, was reinvigorated by its presentation among the gallery’s ancient spiritual heads. The paintings and sculptures too were renewed by the company of this contemporary palimpsest of prose and visual stimuli.

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