MONICA RANI RUDHAR

Monica Rani Rudhar is an artist working on Gadigal Land across video, performance and sculpture. Born to Indian and Romanian migrant parents, her work speaks to longing and loss as she navigates the cultural disconnection that stems from the complexities of her multi-racial ethnicity. Her work is delicately personal and attempts to restore familial histories, traditions and rituals dispersed by migration.

Close Your Eyes and Hold Out Your Hand

Rudhar’s series of ambitious sculptural works act as monuments to familial history and feelings of cultural disconnection. Born to Indian and Romanian migrant parents, Rudhar's delicately personal practice speaks to a sense of loss as she navigates the complexities of her multi-racial ethnicity and seeks to create her own restorative autobiographical archive.

Rudhar has rebuilt by hand what would have been her heirlooms, either lost, gifted or taken away over time. Among the large pieces of Indian jewellery, handmade in glazed terracotta and gold lustre, is a replica of the gold earrings that her father gave her mother, who grew up in Conservative Romania and did not reciprocate his views. Rudhar meticulously recreates these treasured items as large monuments that embody the gravity of their loss. Drawing on their power to bridge a connection to her Indian heritage, her totemic objects unite her with distant family and memorialise fragmented oral histories.