A ground­break­ing mul­ti­me­dia ex­hi­bi­tion ti­tled The Botan­i­cal Af­ter­life of In­den­ture: Imag­i­na­tive Archives opens to the pub­lic at the Art So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go to­mor­row, from 6 pm to 8.30 pm, and con­tin­ues dai­ly un­til June 21, from 12 noon to 6 pm. The ex­hi­bi­tion is free and open to the pub­lic.

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.

Fund­ed by the Cam­pus Re­search and Pub­li­ca­tion Fund, The UWI, St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus; First Cit­i­zens; and the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go with ad­di­tion­al fund­ing by Bea­con In­sur­ance; Chatak Food Prod­ucts; Rent-A-Amp Sound and Light­ing Com­pa­ny; the High Com­mis­sion of In­dia, Port of Spain, Trinidad and To­ba­go; and V&S Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, the ex­hibits asks, “How can we con­tin­ue to doc­u­ment the lega­cies of in­den­ture which we have all in­her­it­ed?”

Draw­ing on the archival re­sources of the Michael Gold­berg col­lec­tion at the West In­di­ana and Spe­cial Col­lec­tions, Al­ma Jor­dan Li­brary, The UWI, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, the ex­hib­it shows how The UWI’s Spe­cial Col­lec­tions are valu­able for pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion about the re­gion’s his­to­ry.

Schol­ar, writer and ac­tivist Dr Gabrielle Ho­sein, Se­nior Lec­tur­er, The IGDS, The UWI, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, said: “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 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 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

The ex­hib­it fea­tures hand-made sil­ver jew­ellery, in­spired by 19th cen­tu­ry por­traits of In­di­an women from Guyana, Trinidad, Ja­maica, and Suri­name, and cre­at­ed by third gen­er­a­tion jew­eller Mitchum Weaver. The jew­ellery’s de­sign tells the sto­ry of women’s ex­pe­ri­ences dur­ing and be­yond the pe­ri­od of in­den­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly fo­cus­ing on their his­to­ries of labour, re­sis­tance and lib­er­a­tion.

Third, it in­cludes twelve god­nas (tat­toos) pack­aged as an art ob­ject, and de­signed by vi­su­al artist Por­tia Sub­ran, which memo­ri­alise the plants brought by in­den­tured work­ers and In­di­an women’s in­de­pen­dent liveli­hoods. The tat­toos reimag­ine an ear­li­er tra­di­tion of tat­too­ing from a con­tem­po­rary post-in­den­ture fem­i­nist ap­proach, and com­bine beau­ty and his­to­ry in a way that can move through the land­scape, every­day life, and mul­ti­cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tions, from Di­wali to Car­ni­val, across the re­gion.

Fourth, ja­ha­jin ban­dals, or cloth bags, co-pro­duced with women’s art col­lec­tives in Bi­har tell the sto­ry of the jour­ney that brought these plants to the Caribbean, and how they were car­ried by women and men, cre­at­ing a lega­cy of care, cul­ti­va­tion, and cul­tur­al sur­vival. Fi­nal­ly, pho­tographs and text sub­mit­ted by de­scen­dants of in­den­ture through­out the Caribbean and its di­as­po­ra are in­clud­ed as an au­dio-vi­su­al ex­pe­ri­ence, edit­ed by doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er Nico­la Cross and co-cu­rat­ed by Vinay Har­richan of The Cut­lass Mag­a­zine, which con­nects In­di­an in­her­i­tances to Caribbean ge­o­gra­phies as they are mean­ing­ful to so many to­day. Fi­nal­ly, ran­goli by UWI grad­u­ate Richard Ram­per­sad reimag­ines In­di­an botan­i­cal’s lega­cy in the Caribbean through rice which, like hen­na, brings the eco­log­i­cal in­to the art­work cre­at­ed.

Cu­ra­tion and graph­ic de­sign are by award-win­ning cross-dis­ci­pli­nary prac­ti­tion­er, Melanie Archer. This deeply per­son­al, fem­i­nist, and eco­log­i­cal in­stal­la­tion is both a trib­ute and a trans­for­ma­tion—where an­ces­tral knowl­edge meets artis­tic imag­i­na­tion. It is a space for all bod­ies and com­mu­ni­ties to see them­selves re­flect­ed and adorned.