Sancintya Mohini Simpson
Brisbane

Drawing on research into her maternal family’s history, Sancintya Mohini Simpson investigates the legacies of Indian indentured labor in the British colony of Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa) from 1860 to 1911. As a descendent of this community, more than 200,000 of whom were recruited from the port of Madras (Chennai) to work on sugar plantations, Simpson navigates the complexities of trauma, migration, and memory, aiming to reappraise their forgotten narratives.

Simpson takes a multidisciplinary approach to her work, moving between painting, poetry, performances, and installations, while grounding her works in materials such as clay, soil, sugarcane ash, and mango wood. Across her diverse projects, Simpson employs references to many traditional artistic techniques such as Indian miniature painting. For instance, for her 15-part gouache and watercolor painting on handmade wasli paper, kūlī / karambu (2020–21), she vividly depicts the full spectrum of female workers’ lives in a coastal plantation, from their domestic routines to the harsh working conditions in the fields and hills, and scenes of violence against them. 

To reconnect with the places of her family’s generational trauma, in 2012, Simpson traveled with her mother to India in search of information, only to encounter incomplete records and archives that underscored their sense of loss. In Simpson’s first exhibition in Western Australia, “ām / ammā / mā maram,” at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), the installation mā maram (2023) shows an attempt to reconcile her mother’s family’s ruptured identity through evocative materials. Two black-clay lotas—rounded pots used in cleansing rituals—sit on a pair of scorched mango-wood benches, their lengths corresponding to each woman’s height; the vessels emit a soft scent recalling notes of mango leaves and burning sugarcane. Grounded in elements of ritual care, mā maram features ominous references to the kala pani (black waters) of the Indian Ocean; a family photograph on the wall acknowledges these lost and forgotten histories. 

A nominee for the Artes Mundi 11 prize in Cardiff and exhibiting in the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Simpson continues to explore themes of migration and labor through an intergenerational lens, connecting her family history to wider narratives of diaspora communities.