AN ONLINE EXHIBITION ‘FRESH’, REFLECTING UPON 25 YEARS OF UNFORGETTABLE MEMORY
“Fresh”, an online exhibition by Jasmine Nilani Joseph, hosted by Vadehra Art Gallery (VAG) is an attempt to help rehabilitate communities that are suffering due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
In order to understand Jasmine’s works, it is important to know her journey that manifested into a body of work like ‘Mobile Studio’. Jasmine Nilani Joseph hails from Srilanka, the land which withholds an unforgettable memory of 25 years. As a child refugee, Jasmine was displaced from Jaffna to Vavuniya during the Sri Lanka Civil War along with her family. Her family continued to reside in Vavuniya, where else Jasmine returned to Jaffna to pursue studies in Art.
Mobile Studio – UD, Still from Animation, ink on paper, 2020
The absence of the idea of permanence in her life, led her to the enquiries of space, place and the impalpable boundaries differing the two. The artist dreams of an utopia where the world functions in her favour, where she can work full- time in her studio without worrying about the irresolute future. With a profound fear instilled because of the restrictions and regressions of daily activities in the country, the artist has found herself permanently residing in displacement.
In her words, “ Jasmine has spent her recent months moving between places and managing temporary spaces as a studio for both her art and life. When confronted with the physicality of property against the ephemerality of history, she asks of these abandoned houses: ‘Whose house is this? Who lived here? How was the house a few years ago?”
Mobile Studio series reflects on the places that the artist has stayed in and moved through over recent years. Through the set of animations and drawings in ink, with the moving textures of landscape, architecture and the living histories of places, the artist documents the spaces of her temporary studios.
The artist expands her philosophical enquiry of the politics of land and displacement through the aesthetics of her drawing.
Text by Rageshree Ranade
Image Courtesy: Vadehra Art Gallery and Artist
Find out more about Artist and Gallery:
https://www.vadehraart.com/jasmine-nilani-joseph-mobile-studio-exhibition-note
