Floor, Wall, Garage, Magazine Rack by Jasleen Kaur

About

Hantverk & Found is pleased to present ‘Floor, Wall, Garage, Magazine Rack’ a new exhibition of sculptural and 2D works, by the award winning Scottish-Indian Artist Jasleen Kaur.

‘Floor, Wall, Garage, Magazine Rack’ explores memory, autobiography and the development of a sense of self.  Inspired and informed by neuroscientist Faraneh Vargha-Khadem’s research into children with developmental amnesia - where memories laid down in the brain during their lives are, from the outset, unobtainable – Kaur examines how our memories define who we are as individuals.

The exhibition will feature a series of wrap around events throughout the Summer, including an artist walk, a film screening and a Langar experience (a Sikh practice where food is served free of charge to all visitors, without distinction of background). 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Jasleen Kaur is a Scottish Indian artist based in London. Brought up in a traditional Indian household in Glasgow, she is fascinated by the malleability of culture. Her work examines the continual adaptations and subtle changes in people’s behaviours and traditions, exploring how social histories become embedded in materials and objects. The idiosyncratic habits of family members inspire her work; refashioned objects are based on instinct and resourcefulness, reflecting a hybridity of national custom and reconsidering the realities of materiality, usage and everyday routine.

Jasleen is a visiting lecturer at The Royal College of Art and devises workshops and programmes for the Victoria & Albert Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Crafts Council and Sorrell Foundation. She exhibits worldwide with recent commissions including Baltic 39 Figure Three and Art on the Underground. She was awarded the Jerwood Makers Open 2015 and her work is part of the permanent collection of the Royal College of Art and Crafts Council.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

‘Floor, Wall, Garage, Magazine Rack’ explores material visual signifiers and the malleability of culture.  Jasleen’s work embraces the materials of her childhood in order to consider broader cultural ideas, reconsidering their value, cultural connotations and what they reveal about how we live.  Furthermore, the exhbition is an exercise in triggering and rationalising memories formed by specific events, people and places from childhood. It considers how these episodes combine to build an autobiography stored in our brains, defining who we are as individuals.

The exhibition features objects and 2D works on paper, re-imaginings from a domestic setting in early 90s Glasgow.  Her work examines how, through use, materials can become visual signifiers of cultures establishing themselves in new environments. For example, 1950’s Axminster carpet, foil Christmas decorations and chrome touch lamps feature so heavily in British Asian homes and Gurdwaras, that they are perceived as a kind of Indian aesthetic.