Rajni Perera: Traveller
Tramway is delighted to present Traveller', the first exhibition in the UK by multi-disciplinary artist Rajni Perera!
About Rajni Perera: Traveller
Sri Lanka-born Toronto-based artist Perera’s bold and intricately crafted paintings, sculptures, textile works, and installations explore issues of ancestorship, hybridity, futurity, and identity through the lens of science fiction. Influenced by a range of visual references including Indian miniaturisim, Astro-blackness, paleontology, magical realism, scientific illustration and fashion as well as her personal experiences of migration, Perera’s works evoke alternative histories, new mythologies and possible futures for the diasporic individual. On entering her immersive installations, we encounter vivid, futuristic worlds bought to life by a distinctive visual language which incorporates traditional techniques and crafts such as embellishment, weaving, woodwork and basketry. The ancestral legacies embodied in these techniques are forged into ornate, protective garments which become spiritual suits of armour for an empowered and resilient ‘Traveller’ of the future.
The exhibition ‘Traveller’ encompasses a series of vignettes of a story about the future of humans which positions the diasporic body as the focus of the future. The Travellers and the world/s they inhabit are portrayed across a constellation of works which encompasses meticulously painted portraits, garments, busts and a large statue within an immersive exhibition environment. Together they create a dialogue between past, present and future evoking the sense that we are witnessing museum artefacts from a potential future not yet come to pass.
In addition, the exhibition includes a number of tools and garments conceived to protect the Traveller from a polluted environment following environmental collapse. Three elaborately embellished face masks are displayed on plinths, created in 2019 and described as ‘pollution wear’ they also convey notions of protection and survival being played out in our present moment.
Described by Negarra A.Kudumu in the accompanying text for the first iteration of the Traveller series ‘The Travellers are protected by way of ancestral armour developed for body and spirit, and adapted to fit behaviours of care and nourishment, while facing the dangers of off-world commute, inhospitable terrain, and territorial dispute. These vestments have been produced slowly, in some cases over the course of many centuries. Their mythologies join hands and worlds through bloodlines, through warp and weft, all the way through to the place where the formerly displaced are presently powerful, safe, protected and flourishing.’
This exhibition is funded by Creative Scotland and Canada House, with additional support from Toronto Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council.
While we take every opportunity to ensure the details for Rajni Perera: Traveller are accurate, we always advise that you contact the event organiser before setting out for the event to avoid disapointment. All information (whether in text or photographs) is given in good faith but should not be relied upon as being a statement of representation or fact.
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