InterWorlds: Talk by Remi Rana Allen and Sinta Tantra
This talk focuses on the work of leading artists Remi Rana Allen and Sinta Tantra.
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Online via Zoom
Free, book via Eventbrite
Interworlds: Transcultural Hybridity in Art project explores decolonisation of the curriculum and the museum, and how the transcultural contributes to contemporary art in its production and reception, in art colleges, museums, galleries and communities.
There will be an opportunity to participate in a Q&A session after the presentations.
Sinta Tantra will be exploring her work - taking the tired, establishment narrative of what it means to be female, to be Asian and to be a cultural outsider and subvert it. She knows what it is to feel the weight of clichéd expectation but does not bow to it; what it means to be underestimated, and yet she creates with confidence and vigour. From colonialism to the democratisation of the art world, her work deals with hefty, monumental themes. Yet, at its core, it dares us to consider how we each find our own meaning in the abstract and in the everyday, and explore what those interpretations say, not about her, but about us.
Sinta Tantra is a British artist of Balinese descent and spent her childhood in Indonesia, America and the UK. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal Academy Schools. Known for her colourful geometric paintings and site-specific murals, many in the public realm, Tantra’s work explores ‘painting on an architectural scale’. Living and working between her two studios in London and Bali, Tantra’s motifs derive from Western movements such as Bauhaus, Art Deco, modernism and abstraction. Her Balinese identity within the post-colonial context is central to her work.
Website: https://sintatantra.com/
Remi Rana Allen questions her Indian heritage through British eyes, interpreting its coded behaviour relatable to both Indian and British experiences. Examining the stereotyping of brown women with long dark hair perceived as the evil “other” of the good white western self. By morphing specific sourced materials from Delhi with Western found objects, this ever-evolving hybrid identity is relocated. Utilising film/mixed media she creates sculptures/large scale installations to convey the essence of that identity. Through postcolonial and feminist theory her contemporary art practice aims to represent the complexities of race, gender inequalities, sexuality, migration and cultural assimilation. Remi founded the Post Grad Interest Group BLAME – Brown Leaders and Makers Exist during her solo show ‘HOLES’ at the Triangle Space, Chelsea 2019. The forthcoming print publication Cha from BLAME will allow Remi to position her research at the centre of discourses on the contemporary Brown identity in the UK.
Remi Rana Allen originally graduated with a Graphic Design degree from Norwich School of Art in 1992. She then spent ten years in the industry working for prestigious London companies. A career break to concentrate on motherhood resulted in a transformational trip to India 2010. Upon her return to the UK, she enrolled for MA Fine Art Printmaking at Buckinghamshire New University - obtaining a Distinction. Rana-Allen completed an MPhil and transferred her PhD to Chelsea College of Art in 2018 under the supervision of Dr. Kimathi Donkor, Dr. Faisal Abdu’Allah and Dr. Maria Walsh. Remi has exhibited nationally and internationally including Birmingham NEC, Alexandra Palace, The Truman Brewery, Asia Triennial Manchester, Rome, Istanbul, Naples and has a pending residency/exhibition to India supported and funded by the British Council India. Remi has received awards including the Scott Mead Award for a residency at The British School at Rome 2019 and the a-n Time Space Money bursary 2021. She has been awarded funding from the CCW MPhil/PhD Student Initiative, the Research Student Support fund and TrAIN for the upcoming publication Cha and she has been invited by British Art Network to discuss how they can support the project. In 2021 Remi was shortlisted for the Janome Fine Art in Textile Award and the Whitworth Art Fund New Collecting Award - British South Asian Women Artists working with textiles - The University of Manchester. Remi currently teaches at Chelsea and Camberwell on the BA/MA Fine Art and Graphic Design courses.
Website: https://www.remiranaallen.com/
Jasmir Creed is a practice led PhD researcher at the Slade School of Fine Art. She explores alienation and the transcultural in paintings of people in urban non-places or iconic historical sites, informed by her identity as a British South Asian artist. Solo exhibitions of paintings by Jasmir Creed include Urban Forest at Delta House Studios, London 2017; Dystopolis at Victoria Gallery and Museum, Liverpool 2018 with catalogue distributed by Liverpool University Press. Group exhibitions include Asia Triennial Manchester 2018, Home and Unhome at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing, China, 2020 and Art Contact, Istanbul Art Fair, Turkey 2021.