Trade

BACKGROUND Trade (2013) was a site-specific installation consisting of seven mounds of food spices made to resemble land formations such as islands. The artwork draws on research from my PhD which looked specifically at the mixed race Anglo-Indian community and its ambiguous, and often ambivalent position in relation to British and Indian culture and history. CONTRIBUTION Occupying the in-between space characterised by the writings of Homi Bhabha and Edward Said, Trade reaffirms and extends this discourse by focusing the lens centrally on the Anglo-Indian community who experienced this fractured space, as academic Lionel Caplan notes, well before there was any theorising on the subject. SIGNIFICANCE The title of the work refers specifically to the historical spice trades of the East India Company. Such trading companies may have originally been motivated by money and wealth. However, the close and symbiotic relationships, which developed between company governors and the ruling governments of the time, should be separated. The eventual claiming of land and colonization, was central to the narrative of empire building. Its legacy continues to expose opportunities for exploitation and power. The 'seven islands' I create from spices relates to the 7 islands of Bombay (prior to land reclamation). It was my aim that, as the viewer walked around the space encountering the mounds of spice, together with the olfactory experience, created a heady, lingering experience, intentionally recalling past memories relating to migration and geographies, annotated as well as unwritten histories, and personal narratives.