Book Launch Sarojini Lewis – A Shift of Identity: Visuals of Migrant Women

Come to the book launch of Sarojini Lewis' A Shift of Identity: Visuals or Migrant Women.

Sarojini Lewis presents her book A Shift of Identity: Visuals of Migrant Women, together with designer Edwin van Gelder and publisher Jap Sam Books. In this book, Lewis combines her personal story with research into the history of female labor migrants from India, especially from the Bhojpuri region. These women ended up in Suriname and Mauritius, among other things, to work on sugar cane plantations.

Lewis investigates how contemporary artists from the Bhojpuri-DiaSpora imagine their mixed background and history. She connects that with photos from archives, stories from her Afro-Surinamese family, and work by other Indian artists. She shows how cultures and rituals are intertwined, and how female voices are often overlooked in these stories.

Sarojini Lewis gives women from this history a voice, and shows how female contract workers from the DiaSpora with archive images and art claim their place. She invites you to look at archive images differently: not as something fixed, but as something alive that is open to new interpretations.

Sarojini Lewis

Sarojini Lewis lives and works in Rotterdam and Suriname. She takes photos, video art and books. She studied at the University of Edinburgh and obtained his PhD at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Her research focuses on female perspectives in archive photography of contract workers, with a contemporary and interdisciplinary approach.

Make your evening complete!

Combine the event with a visit to our exhibitions - day -under evening, the museum is free of charge. Eating something too? Seat in the New café !