These days, we, occasionally, come upon exhibitions where the curators and gallerists take it for granted that viewers are already in the know of the thoughts and ideas, however abstruse and personal, that went into the making of the works on display. Probably the viewers communicate with the participating artists through telepathy. Even when most of the concepts behind the exhibits are as clichéd as in the exhibition ambitiously titled, Small Histories: Memory as Practice, Memory as Ethics; Bringing South Asia together in Kolkata, (June 23-July 21) at Ganges Art gallery and curated by Kurchi Dasgupta and Amritah Sen, one needs an artist's statement of some kind, to make sure that one is not barking up the wrong tree while reviewing a show. There are 13 artists from eight countries here.

Instead of quoting the jargon-laden curatorial note, in simple words, what this exhibition intends to capture is the things an artist would consider important in case the world came to an end. The most articulate are those who have expressed themselves in the most simple (as opposed to simplistic) terms, which is often the most difficult thing to achieve. The Banksy-like Shamsia Hassani of Afghanistan brings to the fore all the trials and tribulations that women, and women artists, in particular, face in Afghanistan, and it's easy to empathize with her.

In striking contrast, Marium Agha's conventionally "bold" images of pudenda and menstruation have become so threadbare that they have lost their shock value. Ideas associated with feminism borrowed wholesale from the West can be quite tiresome. Even the medium of embroidery has lost all its novelty. However, one can't help admiring the courage of the artist who has exhibited works that explore the female form and sexuality in a country as orthodox as Pakistan.

Janani Cooray's video of a woman in a metal sheath and barbed wire "osariya" (the formal dress of Sri Lankan women) walking the streets of a city is all about the constricted lives of women expressed in an obvious manner. However, one had to refer to the e-catalogue to discover the point she wanted to make about the political symbolism of this garment.

But even the e-catalogue was of no help in understanding Thyitar's photographic print of a woman with floating balloons and the Barbie doll. Does this artist from Myanmar really have to go back to Ibsen to make her statement on the condition of women?

Ashmina Ranjit's long white dress made of sanitary napkins looks perfectly tailored, but wading in a pool of blood (actually blood red cloth) this has lost its bite, thanks to the flash flood of advertisements featuring sanitary napkins on TV networks. Perhaps, in Nepal, where the artist is from, they are still taboo, as they once were in this country.

Now what does the viewer make of two photographic prints of two views of a ceiling, only one of which has a bulb burning (picture, left)? How is one to be aware of the story the artist, Liz Fernando from Sri Lanka, spins around it? Even with footnotes, it is impossible to make much sense of it. Sadly, even an artist as fine as Debnath Basu seems to have lost his touch in this drawing with graphite on a printed sheet. His forte is satire, but this time it falls flat. Sumona Jana's efforts are equally bootless.