COPELAND GALLERY 2020
ANGLO INDIAN SPECULATIONS
At the start of 2019 family members had heard I was researching into Anglo Indian histories. I was passed a piece of paper which had handwritten, dictated stories, telling of knife fights and cursed heirlooms. I was taken by the fantastical and visual nature of these stories and started to draw. Drawing became embroidery, a medium I find interesting due to its association with craft and femninity. It also came up in interviews I conducted with older Anglo Indian women as a regular domestic practice. These naratives had been stripped by time, now only a couple sentences each, and likely to be embellished too. Translating them into image felt like my contribution to these ever evolving histories.
Alongside the hanging fabric, was a excerpt for the 1956 film ‘Bhowani Junction’, where an english officer recited all the names and slurs used for Anglo Indians. Played on a box TV, placed atop a rusting filing cabinet, I hinted towards the archive from which i’ve pulled these fragments of history.