06.09 – 08.09.2024
Sandton Convention Center, Hall 2, Maude Street, Sandton
Johannesburg, South Africa
LAB #G
Exhibiting Artist: Cheriese Dilrajh
The opposite of death is birth and creation. Drawing on personal narratives and histories, Cheriese uses the sari, a fabric worn by her mother and grandmothers, to bring these narratives into the present. She is fascinated by landscapes and contemplates how the women in her family are both bound and present within her. She reflects on how she has and has not inherited their struggles, burdens, resistance, and resilience.
The landscape is a geography that binds her to others. We embody places, and they embody us.
Women’s labour— tasks like cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing — are often invisibilised though it plays a vital role in the economy. Cheriese thinks about her own free will and its limits, her ability to create and construct her reality, whereas the women before her were constrained by many other duties. These constraints shaped them differently than they shaped her — she stands on the shoulders of those who came before her.
Cheriese envisions a world undefined by borders, characterised by hybridity and fluidity, and considers what non-rigidity births. It is a world where one space fertilises the next, a space in flux. These structures that violently bind us necessitate constant undoing and re-making.
There is an exploration of how these elements shape one’s sense of self, being and belonging. Often working at the present and past intersections of history, politics, architecture, and geography, she reflects on how these factors have and continue to shape her.
Through the sensory world of feeling, she finds solace in redefining her terrain, envisioning worlds anew.
