Visual artist Angel Rose turns pink rice into an archive of Indian, Surinamese and Black identity
Visual artist Angel Rose uses dyed pink rice in her installations to explore the intersection of South Asian, Surinamese, and Western pop culture identities. Her work, currently exhibited in Delhi, draws on archival research to critique the history of plantation labor and the aesthetics of consumerism.
Why it matters
The exhibition highlights the role of contemporary art in archiving and reinterpreting the complex histories of the South Asian diaspora.
There is something almost mischievous about Angel Rose’s pink rice creations. It sits behind perspex, dyed pink, looking at first like confectionery or confetti or the aftermath of a children’s party. Then you notice the photograph, the television image, and then the rice again. By the time you have made the circuit, the object has acquired the uncomfortable density of an archive .
This is the trick Angel-Rose Oedit Doebé likes to play: make you look at something because it is pretty, and then make you stay because it is not.
Angel Rose’s works on display at Method, Delhi | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
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