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Travelling in a Multiverse of Hybridity

Travelling in a Multiverse of Hybridity

Artist Rajni Perera speaks to Qanita Lilla about the interstellar travelers and the multiversal futurisms that inform her practice.

Transcript

Travelling in a Multiverse of Hybridity
Artist Rajni Perera speaks to Qanita Lilla about the interstellar travelers and the multiversal futurisms that inform her practice.

In artist Rajni Perera’s marbled landscapes, mutant travellers traverse interstellar terrains as regal environmental combatants. Hers is a multiverse of jewel-coloured intensity, of hairy spoons and delicate seed pods all of whom co-exist as equals in a realm where only the gentle survive. Which life events birthed these ideas and which everyday materialities were harnessed to propel Rajni’s practice ‘to infinity and beyond’?

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I really love making abstract sculpture that responds to the shapes of science fiction. We can call them artifacts, spacecraft, wands, and all sorts of medical equipment. Science fiction is replete with armour and special types of magical technology.

Meet our guest

Rajni Perera

Rajni Perera was born in Sri Lanka in 1985 and lives and works in Toronto. She explores issues of hybridity, futurity, ancestorship, immigration identity/cultures, monsters and dream worlds. All of these themes marry in a newly objectified realm of mythical symbioses. In her work she seeks to open and reveal the dynamism of the icons and objects she creates, both scripturally existent, self-invented and externally defined. She creates a subversive aesthetic that counteracts antiquated, oppressive discourse, and acts as a restorative force through which people can move outdated, repressive modes of being towards reclaiming their power.

@rajniperera  / http://www.rajniperera.com

Credits

With Opened Mouths: The Podcast is hosted by Dr Qanita Lilla and produced by Agnes Etherington Art Centre in partnership with Queen’s University’s campus radio station, CFRC 101.9 FM. 

Recorded at and distributed by CFRC 101.9 FM, Queen’s University
Production by Dr Qanita Lilla, Danuta Sierhuis and Evan Wainio-Woldanski 
Original music by Jameel3DN, produced by Elroy “EC3” Cox III and commissioned by Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 2021
Episodes are edited and mixed by Chancelor Maracle, CFRC 101.9 FM
The graphic for the podcast is created by Vincent Perez
The podcast is supported by The George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund, Queen’s University; the Justin and Elisabeth Lang Fund; and Young Canada Works Building Careers in Heritage, a program funded by the Government of Canada.
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Queen's University
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Footnotes
Image Credits

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