Jagdeep Raina: Ghosts in the Fields
Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, BC - Sep 21 – Dec 15
Those living in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland are often shocked to learn that less than 5% of the province’s land base is agricultural. A Vancouver bias could account for this shock, but it could also be said that stories of farms and farm workers have gained a greater presence in the local imaginary than those of forestry, mining and fishing. Surrey was once the province’s largest agricultural centre; now it’s becoming the province’s largest city. With this status comes historical ascendancy, making Ghosts in the Fields an important exhibition.
Inspired by archival images of 1970s and ’80s BC farm workers, and interviews by media artist Craig Berggold and filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, New York City–based interdisciplinary artist Jagdeep Raina has returned to these fields, both pictured and in person, to conduct interviews with a new generation of workers and union organizers. Despite technological advances, injustices persist, and tales are told by a largely racialized workforce of long hours, wage theft, and inhuman living and working conditions.
Raina’s visual narrative follows the struggles of successive generations of South Asian farm workers, with key moments in the labour movement reflected in a stop-motion animation video. Through ink drawings Raina made from Berggold’s 1980s photographs, what begins as a relaxed worker pastoral is interrupted by a fiery red presence, a ghost if not of the present then of a persistent and punitive past. Also in the exhibition are a series of hand-stitched quilts that highlight the role women played in the movement, particularly in that most dangerous of labour activities: union organizing.
Opening reception Sep 21, 6:30–9pm
