There is still time to see the exciting multimedia exhibition “The Botanical Afterlife of Indenture: Imaginative Archives.” The exhibition opened on June 10, and will continue through June 21, 2025, at the Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago (located at 3-7 St. Vincent Avenue, Port of Spain, Trinidad). The exhibit asks, “How can we continue to document the legacies of indenture which we have all inherited?” The exhibition is free and open to the public. For more information, see Campus News (UWI-St. Augustine).
Description: This innovative exhibition honours the legacy and contribution of Indian indentured labourers to our landscape through the seeds, spices, plant cuttings and flora brought with them as they travelled in the ships’ hold.
The exhibition builds on long-standing research, publications, and artistic practice exploring women’s experiences of Indian indenture and its legacies in the Caribbean. It draws from the work of The University of the West Indies (The UWI) Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS). Notably, the IGDS’ online, open-access journal, The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, published a Special Issue on Indo-Caribbean Feminisms (2012), and led the publication of the edited collection, Indo-Caribbean Feminisms: Genealogies, Theories, Enactments (2016). This interdisciplinary project sits at the intersection of that historical work and the IGDS’ research theme, The Making of Feminisms in the Caribbean, initiated by Emerita Professor Patricia Mohammed. [. . .]
Scholar, writer and activist Dr. Gabrielle Hosein, Senior Lecturer, The IGDS, The UWI, St. Augustine Campus, says, “The botanical is a living archive of survival, and this exhibit memorialises its legacy in a way that connects indenture histories to us all. The rich archive of material at the Alma Jordan Library can help us to better understand the myths and realities that defined Indian indenture experience, particularly for women, contributing to The UWI’s long tradition of being a knowledge-hub for Caribbean women’s history. Producing both publications and visual art that shares research findings in a way that is interdisciplinary and accessible to students, cultural groups, and other members of the public, has long been one of the strengths of the IGDS, and that contribution to public education continues here.” [. . .]
This photography-centered installation showcases original mehndi designs that visualise Caribbean indentured history, highlighting how Indian-descended aesthetic practices can bring practices of remembering into contemporary life. The photographs are the work of pioneering Trinidadian woman photographer Abigail Hadeed and mehndi artist Risa Raghunanan-Mohammed, founder of Henna Trinidad. Here, mehndi or henna is not only body adornment, but feminist and botanical archive. For her, in particular, mehndi is a form of art that hasn’t been sufficiently engaged as a tool of visual history-telling. [. . .]
For full description and more information, see https://bit.ly/45F4mVF
[Shown above: Detail of “An inheritance that belongs to us all” by Abigail Hadeed.]