Where The Banyan Tree Meets The Nile

Medrar for Contemporary Art in Cairo-Egypt and Jerome-MCAD Fellowship Show at MCAD Gallery, December’23 – February’24

Medium: Site-Specific Multimedia Installation (Moving Image Collage, Projection, Mirrors, Sound)

A Banyan Tree grows in the heart of Zamalek in Cairo. Its roots were carried to Egypt from India by Khedive Ismail in 1868. Originally from Goa-India, living in the United States and on a residency in Egypt at the time, the Banyan Tree forms a metaphor for immigrant people such as the myself. When we carry our roots with us, how do we instill a sense of belonging in a new land? What happens when the Banyan Tree meets the River Nile. For The imagery and sound in the work was excavated from two archival registers: The Cairo Landscape: Birds from Pharaonic times, Mausoleum of Shajarat El Durr, Al Muizz Street, contemporary Cairo, domestic spaces, LACMA archive, The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. The Arabian Sea: Filmed off the coast of Sindhudurg, close to my ancestral village in Maharashtra, along the west coast of India.