Mere Porvaj [I am Remembering]
19 September - 2 November 2025
Mere Porvaj [I am Remembering]
Shivanjani Lal
Shivanjani Lal, Mere Porvaj [I am Remembering] (installation detail, in situ at Linden New Art), 2024. Photograph: Simon Strong, courtesy Shivanjani Lal and Linden New Art.
Mere Porvaj [I am Remembering]
The girmitiyas are gone now, but their imprint is etched indelibly on the landscape of their adopted homes
Brij V Lal from Chalo Jahaji
Mere Porvaj [I am remembering]
My family I am remembering.
My people I am remembering our journeys by water, our struggles on land.
I am remembering our bodies working this land, tending it as though it were our own; for the will of others who continue to forget us and our story.
I am remembering our prayers and our songs.
No longer defined by our loss and our erasure.
These works consider softer moments of building home. Holding our memories in our bodies and in our landscapes.
This is something true.
My Aaji built the house I think of as home. A blue house on a hill. Overlooking a green river…
Her sari is light orange, waving in the wind.
My Nanni built her house. A house with a red puja room with ghosts that breathed in and out as the wind blew. Facing the school.
Her sari is soft pink and green, silk from the south of India a reminder of homelands and weaving through green fields of sugarcane.
The works in Mere Porvaj [I am remembering] speak to a history that has been forgotten, the labour of women, and the love of a land that continues to hold them. The works in this new body of work explores print making, textiles, objects and a song that holds it all together. Offering a meditation on who gets to remember but also small moments of joy and prayer that allow a community to continue and persist.
Shivanjani Lal - Mere Porvaj [I am Remembering] is presented by Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts in partnership with the North Australian Festival of Arts.
Also on display during this period
All Exhibitions
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Sat - Sun: 9am-1pm
Gallery closed Mondays, public holidays and during exhibition install weeks.
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Qld, 4810 Australia
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Acknowledgement of Country
Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts respectfully acknowledges the Wulgurukaba of Gurambilbarra and Yunbenun and the surrounding groups of our region - Bindal, Gugu Badhan, Nywaigi, Warrgamay, Bandjin and Gudjal - as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we gather, share and celebrate local creative practice. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the first people of Australia. They have never ceded sovereignty and remain strong in their enduring connection to land and Culture.
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Acknowledgements
Umbrella is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, part of the Department of Communities, Housing and Digital Economy, and by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, state and territory governments. | Umbrella is supported by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation and receives funding from Creative Australia through the Australian Cultural Fund. | Townsville City Council is a funding partner of Umbrella's program.
