Sancintya Mohini Simpson: ām / ammā / mā maram

In ām / ammā / mā maram, Meanjin (Brisbane)-based artist Sancintya Mohini Simpson continues research into her matrilineal heritage, making visible the histories of indentured Indian women that remain marginal or erased in colonial archives.

A first-generation Australian and descendent of labourers from Madras (now Chennai), India, sent to work on sugar plantations in the British colony of Natal, South Africa (now KwaZulu-Natal), Simpson’s exhibition traces her family’s journey through the use of materials common to these places and histories – such as sugarcane and mango.

Through a combination of paintings, sculpture, poetry and scent, Simpson’s speculative archive speaks to the complexities of intergenerational trauma, memory, migration and healing. With a practice spanning painting, moving image, installation, poetry and performance, this is Simpson’s first exhibition in Western Australia.

Are our mothers
Mango trees
Or fruit
Fallen, slashed
Are they roots
Leaves or sap
Or branches we
hold onto.

– Sancintya Mohini Simpson

Supported by PICA’s Art Commissioners.

Please join PICA for our Djilba/Kambarang season exhibition opening on Thursday 2 August, 6:30pm.