Performance: Transient Temples

An acknowledgement of Country that is now mine too. I have not snatched it. I have not stolen it. I have not invaded it. I have respectfully, ceremoniously, and agreeably made it mine. But by doing that, have I still colonized it?

Anindita Banerjee will remount her ritualised performance installation Transient Temples on Saturday morning. She will connect with a local tree at Bunjil Place and tie Mauli - which are red and yellow strings worn by Hindus on their wrists for puja or religious ceremony - around her chosen tree. She will then perform her participatory acknowledgement of Country.

The ritual allows Anindita to contemplate her place as a migrant on the unceded and colonised First Nations lands of Australia. In turn, she shares this experience with the visitors of Bunjil Place, encouraging them to reflect on the process of settling and reclaiming ceremonies of faith and gathering.

Please note this performance will take place outdoors on uneven ground. Please ensure you wear appropriate clothing and footwear.

You are also invited to join us after the performance for chai and refreshments at Bunjil Place Gallery.

_{Image:
Anindita Banerjee 
Documentation still of Transient Temples 
2019 
Performance installation 
Photo courtesy the artist}

MEET ANINDITA

Anindita Banerjee, a twice uprooted Indian, is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher. She lives and works on the lands of the Wadawurrung people of the Kulin Nation. Her research interest includes cultural otherness, authentic identity and the sense of home. The memories of ritualistic ceremonies and mark-makings and her reconstruction of them informs her practice. Using gestural portrayals of hybrid rituals, she wonders where her place is as an immigrant to the unceded Indigenous lands of present-day Australia. Through her work, she tests the existence of cultural otherness and challenges the notion of fitting into socio-cultural spaces literally and metaphorically. She has exhibited at the Victoria Parliament Melbourne, Customs House Sydney, the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and various other institutions and galleries. 

www.aninditabanerjee.com