Jagdeep Raina
These sweet memories, these temple steps, 2015

Mixed media on paper

22 x 30 inches (55.88 x 76.2 cm)

Courtesy of Cooper Cole Gallery

In my work, I inquire into the intimate relationships between personal and public archives, demonstrating how memory exceeds unstable environments. Within this, I am interested in the temporary ways in which communities come together to survive, and how these units gradually erode over time. My work asks, what kind of mark does this erosion leave on the physical spaces communities inhabit? How do these communities become psychologically altered through their lived experience? Through drawing, writing, ceramics, embroidered tapestries, video animation and, more recently, 35 mm film, I use strategies of reproduction to underscore that the archive is not a static object. By disrupting the perceived fixity of the archive and recovering its evolving heterogeneity, my work reveals how hierarchies of power play out across class, gender, sexuality, caste, race, architecture, and geography. As such, my work aims to identify the residue left behind by the human touch, and its restorative potential.