Shivanjani Lal: Beta, ek story bathao
- When 17 Jan - 14 Mar 2020
- Where
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Address
CNR OXFORD ST & GREENS RD, PADDINGTON NSW 2021
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Hours
TUES TO SAT, 10AM–5PM
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Phone
+61 2 8936 0888
Shivanjani Lal is a twice-removed Fijian Indian Australian artist who works with archival images, found materials, video, performance and ritual. Her work explores the indentured labour diaspora of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the histories that brought her family from India to Fiji and now to Australia. By unpacking experiences of intergenerational trauma, grief and healing in her work, Lal preserves, creates and redefines the history of the Indo-Fijian community away from the current political climate in both Fiji and India.
This exhibition brings together new photography and video documenting Lal’s return to Fiji after a prolonged absence and a visit to see her grandmother’s house, alongside map works that evoke her family’s history shaped by the kālā pānī (‘black waters’). In Hindu culture, kālā pānī refers to a past proscription of crossing the seas to foreign lands that led to a loss of caste and social exclusion.
The title, from the writing of Manisha Anjali, invites the recounting of a story: Beta, ek story bathao. Child, tell me a story.
Accessible exhibition text (PDF) (DOC)
Shivanjani Lal: In Conversation
6pm Thursday 23 January | Free
A conversation between artist Shivanjani Lal and poet Manisha Anjali. Together they will discuss the experiences of diaspora, tracing a thread from India, across the Pacific to Australia, uncovering the many layers that inform these histories. The artists will also consider the importance of language, specifically Fijian Hindi, and how this significant component of culture shapes their creative practices.
If you have questions regarding access to exhibitions or programs, please call on 02 8936 0888 or email unswgalleries@unsw.edu.au