When Thursday, January 30, 2025, 12-1 PM PST
Where Virtual via Zoom
Cost Free with registration.
Join us for Art, Memory, and the Indian Diaspora to gain insight into the work of Made of Memory exhibiting artist Priyanka Rana. During this virtual webinar, guests will hear directly from the artist about her process, how she relates to her materials, and how her practice relates to the artwork of the greater Indian Diaspora. Priyanka Rana is joined by Dr. Beth Citron, the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Asian and Asian Diaspora Art at Asia Society, New York. Rana and Dr. Citron will discuss the particular aspects of Rana’s practice in relation to her location, ecology, and the “new age silk route.” Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation.
Priyanka Rana
Instagram | Website
Born in India in 1980, Priyanka Rana’s early inquiries into aesthetics and philosophy and professional work in exhibitions led her to establish a full-time sculpture practice in 2018. Largely self-taught, Rana’s experiments with various sculptural materials have led to a nearly-singular engagement with untreated wood. Her practice is rooted in ecology and sustainability; she works with local trees, transforming naturally felled trunks into abstract sculptures using a range of power tools. Rana chars many of her surfaces, which she likens to “painting with fire.”
Central to Rana’s work is the interplay between that which is dangerous and delicate. While the main tools for sculpting with wood – chainsaws, handsaws, and a torch – require extreme care, including protective clothing and safety protocols, many of the artist’s works are completed amidst the sociality of a home dinner table. The artist collects domestic and intimate materials, such as fabric from saris and children’s toys that are then treated with polyurethane and spray paint, using these to intervene in the wood.
Through pairing with softer household materials, Rana’s largely abstract works invoke questions of migration and nostalgia, with individual toys speaking to specific moments and places that her multicultural community calls home, as well as her own personal history across three continents.
As Rana continues to grow her practice, she has embarked on exploratory projects in other mediums including aluminum and processes such as 3D printing, and has engaged with figural and symbolic forms that extend her central concerns.
Living and working in San Francisco, California’s Bay Area, Rana’s work has been shown widely in the region, including at a number of arts festivals and through prestigious and highly visible public art commissions.
Dr. Beth Citron
Beth Citron is the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Asian and Asian Diaspora Art at Asia Society, New York. She holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania, has been a recipient of an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in 2019, and has recently authored a course on modern and contemporary Indian art for MAP Academy. She was the founding curator of modern and contemporary art at the Rubin Museum of Art from 2010-19.
