Crossing
Addin Sugarda, Raghav Kumar
28
November 2024
28
November
2024
21
December 2024
Crossing by Raghav Kumar and Addin Sugarda presents a dialogue between personal histories and cultural inheritances, exploring the ways individuals navigate the intersections of memory, heritage, and identity. Through distinct yet interwoven practices, the artists reconstruct fragmented narratives to interrogate belonging and self-definition.
Raghav Kumar's work draws on documentary photography and archival imagery to reflect on his upbringing in a refugee household shaped by the Partition of India. His site-specific installation combines contemporary photographs with family archives, reconstructing the layered micro-histories of his ancestral home and migrant experience in Australia. This deeply personal exploration positions photography as a medium of intergenerational healing, bridging the disjointed perceptions of past and present to forge a renewed, albeit fragmented, sense of belonging.
Similarly, Addin Sugarda’s work transforms the inherited weight of cultural expectations into intricate ceramic sculptures, paintings and installations. Reimagining Javanese heirlooms, Sugarda challenges traditional notions of filial piety within contemporary Indonesian society. Their performative practice, incorporating vocalisations and shadow puppetry, expands on the cathartic act of reshaping inherited narratives, offering a visceral meditation on emancipation and the evolving relationship between heritage and individuality.
Together, Raghav and Addin navigate the delicate balance between reverence and rupture, weaving their personal narratives into broader cultural discourses. Their works engage viewers in a contemplative space where the deeply personal becomes a lens for understanding collective experiences of memory, loss, and transformation. Through this exhibition, the artists invite us to reflect on how we reconstruct identity amidst the residues of history and tradition, forging new pathways toward healing and liberation.
Crossing by Raghav Kumar and Addin Sugarda presents a dialogue between personal histories and cultural inheritances, exploring the ways individuals navigate the intersections of memory, heritage, and identity. Through distinct yet interwoven practices, the artists reconstruct fragmented narratives to interrogate belonging and self-definition.
Raghav Kumar's work draws on documentary photography and archival imagery to reflect on his upbringing in a refugee household shaped by the Partition of India. His site-specific installation combines contemporary photographs with family archives, reconstructing the layered micro-histories of his ancestral home and migrant experience in Australia. This deeply personal exploration positions photography as a medium of intergenerational healing, bridging the disjointed perceptions of past and present to forge a renewed, albeit fragmented, sense of belonging.
Similarly, Addin Sugarda’s work transforms the inherited weight of cultural expectations into intricate ceramic sculptures, paintings and installations. Reimagining Javanese heirlooms, Sugarda challenges traditional notions of filial piety within contemporary Indonesian society. Their performative practice, incorporating vocalisations and shadow puppetry, expands on the cathartic act of reshaping inherited narratives, offering a visceral meditation on emancipation and the evolving relationship between heritage and individuality.
Together, Raghav and Addin navigate the delicate balance between reverence and rupture, weaving their personal narratives into broader cultural discourses. Their works engage viewers in a contemplative space where the deeply personal becomes a lens for understanding collective experiences of memory, loss, and transformation. Through this exhibition, the artists invite us to reflect on how we reconstruct identity amidst the residues of history and tradition, forging new pathways toward healing and liberation.
Addin Sugarda
Indonesian-born artist Addin Sugarda uses various midfire clay bodies and miscellaneous materials to create intricate ceramic sculptures of fictitious cultural heirlooms from their Javanese heritage, exploring transgenerational trauma as a form of inheritance challenging traditional filial piety in contemporary Indonesian society.
Sugarda emulates a modified version of heirlooms and objects from their heritage, the intricate sculptures carry and release hidden narratives from their personal lived experience. Their performative practice offers a visceral immersive experience that include ritualistic vocalisations and shadow puppetry.
Raghav Kumar
Raghav Kumar is an Indian-born emerging photographer based in Melbourne. His research led practice navigates through the realms of documentary photography, traditional Indian studio portraiture and expanded photography to explore themes of displacement, cultural identity and intergenerational memory. As a descendant to refugees that survived during the Partition of British India (1947), Kumar’s research is driven by his own upbringing in a refugee family to account for inherited memory, inter-generational loss and healing. Through his work, he attempts to revive and use the traditional Indian studio practices to decolonise the photographic lens and reposition its role to tell undocumented histories within his own community.
Kumar completed a degree in Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) degree in Communication design in 2016 at the Nottingham Trent University (England). Later he decided to follow his passion for photography and completed his Masters degree in photography from RMIT University (Melbourne) in 2023. His Master’s project titled ‘All that remained are memories’ received the Dean’s award for academic excellence, NAVA Ignition Award for highest performing Profession Practice and the Seventh Gallery Mentorship Award.