Shivanjani Lal (Fiji/Australia-London)
Shivanjani Lal (born 1982 in New South Wales) is an Fiji-Indian-Australia descent artist and curator based in Australia and UK. She finished her bachelor studies from University of Wollongong (2005), master studies on art management from University of Melbourne (2008), bachelor of photography and visual art from Australian Academy of Design, Melbourne (2012), master or arts and community from VCA and MCM Melbourne (2014), at the moment she is on her final year of master studies on moving image, Goldsmith University, London (since 2020).
She is tied to a long history of familial movement; her work uses personal grief to account for ancestral loss and healing. She is a member of the indentured labourer diaspora from the Indian and Pacific oceans. She employs intimate images of family, sourced from photo albums, along with video and images from contemporary travels to the Asia-Pacific to reconstruct temporary landscapes.
Shivanjani has had several solo exhibitions since 2011 in Australia, New Zealand, and India. She also exhibited in several group shows, and was involved in International residencies.
“5 Prayers for 5 Generation” (2021)
Cotton cloths, sugar sacks, rocks and sugar cane, audio
Variable size
“I am remembering 87 ships sailing black waters.
60 965 bodies moved through the kala pani, the dark tides.
Holding land in their bodies, mere porvaj
Only 60 553 arrived in Viti.
I am remembering those who fell,
Those who couldn’t make it across to that better life of false promises.”
Shivanjani’s works often explore her experiences as a twice removed diaspora of migrating families, driven by global economies and commodities such as sugar. Through her work entitled 5 Prayers for 5 Generations she intends to ask audiences to listen, remember and hold space for smaller moments.
How do you remember the lives lived by your family?
The stories they told you at night; while you slept and dreamed?
The stories that they never told you but are embedded in your body all the same.
It is the tale of forgotten love remembered. 5 Prayers for 5 Generations uses storytelling as a way to share history and create memorials for these lost moments.
