My solo exhibition Reclaimed: Indo-Caribbean HerStories is at on the main floor of the Gardiner Museum, May 4 - August 27. To view the opening remarks on May 3rd, view this link.
East wall, Main Floor, Gardiner Museum. All Images photo credit: Toni Hafkensheid.
CLICKTHE VIDEO HERSTORIES BELOW for 3-minute videos of each of the ten women locating themselves in the diaspora and telling us a story of their female ancestor.
Artist Statement
I grew up in Fredericton, New Brunswick, the daughter of an Indo-Trinidadian immigrant who married an Irish-American woman—a brown face in a sea of white. My lived experience propelled me to engage with issues of race, identity, and representation. I began working with sepia-toned, iron-oxide rich archival photography on ceramic, rendering my father’s life and telling the stories of his ancestors. I persisted in using ceramic material in the production process, fusing coloured ceramic pigments onto hand-rolled porcelain.
Following the ideas of cultural theorist Arielle Azoulay, my work engages the socio-political landscape of my Indo-Caribbean ancestors, purposefully shedding light on the under-represented stories of Indo-Caribbean women. The “coolie belle” portraits were shot on glass plates by male colonial photographers and hand-processed. The postcards were exoticized and commodified for Western tourists at the turn of the last century, hardships erased. My process of transferring portraits to ceramic tile is an act of both reclamation and decolonization. The courage and defiance of these women uplifted their “new slave” status. They wore their savings on their bodies, jewellery fashioned from their earnings. I also give voice through portraiture to us, we, the descendants of the “coolie women,” to reclaim our herstories.
This panel discussion and community feedback session was recorded live on June 14th at the Gardiner Museum. Moderated by Alissa Trotz, U of T, and presented by Ramabai Espinet, U of T, Nalini Mohabir, Concordia, Joy Mahabir, Suffolk College, New York
Curatorial Statement, Sequoia Miller
Stories of Indian migrants who came to work on Caribbean plantations from the 1830s onward are often little-known. Toronto-based artist Heidi McKenzie explores the stories of Indo-Caribbean women and their descendants in Canada, including her own family, by reconsidering archival imagery and traditional jewellery forms through the lens of photography on translucent porcelain.
The end of the legal trade in enslaved people in the British Empire in 1833 prompted the immediate rise of indentured labour, particularly among people from India, in the Caribbean. An estimated half-million Indians migrated, often under dubious circumstances, to the plantations of the British colonies where they worked alongside formerly enslaved people of African descent. Among these, scholars estimate up to 20 percent were women, often widows or others escaping untenable situations. Archival studio photography from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries documents these women, showing them bedecked with ornate, layered jewellery. Worn to assert status, as cultural expression, and as a form of currency, such jewellery became associated initially with the labouring classes and, more recently, with craft-based ties to matrilineal heritage.
Reclaimed: Indo-Caribbean HerStories takes inspiration from archival and family images to explore how descendants of “coolie belles” in Canada today connect to stories of their matrilineal ancestors. While clear documentation exists for some women, the archive is scant for many, prompting speculative or artistic ruminations on how traditions and identities are both passed down and created. The three primary elements of the installation—ceramic sculptures viewed alongside historical jewellery; contemporary portraits printed on translucent porcelain; and archival images on porcelain suspended in frames—use a feminist lens to explore these stories in different ways.
Part of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, this exhibition highlights the complex, longstanding, and often unpredictable interplay between ceramics and photography.
I would like to acknowledge the support of the City of Toronto.