Tomorrow, June 10th, will see the start of a groundbreaking multimedia exhibition titled “The Botanical Afterlife of Indenture: Imaginative Archives”.

In a statement, UWI St Augustine says it honours the legacy and contribution of Indian indentured labourers to T&T’s landscape through the seeds, spices, plant cuttings and flora brought with them as they travelled from India to the Caribbean.

The exhibition also builds on long-standing research, publications, and artistic practice exploring women’s experiences of Indian indenture and its legacies in the Caribbean.

UWI says the photography-centered installation showcases original mehndi designs that visualise Caribbean indentured history, highlighting how Indian-descended aesthetic practices can bring practices of remembering into contemporary life.

The photographs are the work of pioneering Trinidadian woman photographer Abigail Hadeed and mehndi artist Risa Raghunanan-Mohammed, founder of Henna Trinidad.

It also features:

• Hand-made silver jewellery, inspired by 19th century portraits of Indian women from Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica, and Suriname, and created by third generation jeweller Mitchum Weaver.
• 12 godnas (tattoos) packaged as an art object, and designed by visual artist Portia Subran, which memorialise the plants brought by indentured workers and Indian women’s independent livelihoods. The tattoos re-imagine an earlier tradition of tattooing from a contemporary post-indenture feminist approach, and combine beauty and history in a way that can move through the landscape, everyday life, and multicultural celebrations, from Diwali to Carnival, across the region.
• Jahajin bandals, or cloth bags, co-produced with women’s art collectives in Bihar tell the story of the journey that brought these plants to the Caribbean, and how they were carried by women and men, creating a legacy of care, cultivation, and cultural survival. F
• Photographs and text submitted by descendants of indenture throughout the Caribbean and its diaspora are included as an audio-visual experience, edited by documentary filmmaker Nicola Cross and co-curated by Vinay Harrichan of The Cutlass Magazine.
• Rangoli by UWI graduate Richard Rampersad which re-imagines Indian botanical’s legacy in the Caribbean through rice which, like henna, brings the ecological into the artwork created.

UWI says the exhibition builds on long-standing research, publications, and artistic practice exploring women’s experiences of Indian indenture and its legacies in the Caribbean and draws from the work of UWI’s Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS).

Scholar, writer and activist Dr. Gabrielle Hosein, Senior Lecturer, The IGDS, adds, “The botanical is a living archive of survival, and this exhibit memorialises its legacy in a way that connects indenture histories to us all. The rich archive of material at the Alma Jordan Library can help us to better understand the myths and realities that defined Indian indenture experience, particularly for women, contributing to The UWI’s long tradition of being a knowledge-hub for Caribbean women’s history. Producing both publications and visual art that shares research findings in a way that is interdisciplinary and accessible to students, cultural groups, and other members of the public, has long been one of the strengths of the IGDS, and that contribution to public education continues here”.

Curation and graphic design for the exhibition are by award-winning cross-disciplinary practitioner, Melanie Archer.

The exhibition will open at the Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago on St Vincent Ave, Port of Spain, on June 10th 2025 from 6pm to 8:30pm.

It will then continue daily until June 21st 2025, from 12pm to 6pm.

The exhibition is free and open to the public.