Drop earrings that once belonged to my mother

Monica Rani Rudhar’s sculpture, video and performance works articulate experiences of cultural connection and disconnection as shaped by her multi-racial ethnicity. An artist of Indian and Romanian heritage born to first generation migrants, she draws from personal and familial narratives to restore rituals, histories and traditions that have been dispersed through migration.

'Drop earrings that once belonged to my mother' recreates in large scale a pair of earrings commissioned by the artist’s father for her mother. Custom-designed and crafted by her goldsmith cousin living in Punjab, the elaborate 24-karat gold heirlooms were an expression of her father’s love, and embody Indian values and traditions related to the gifting of gold as a symbol of wealth and status. Rather than pass the earrings onto her daughter, the artist’s mother gifted them to other family members, a point of sadness and loss for the artist.

By recreating the palm-sized adornments as resplendent, large-scale totems, Rudhar gives physical form to her family history and lays bare the complexities of cultural convergence that shape the artist’s relationship with her heritage. Crafted in painstaking detail from terracotta and gilded in lavish gold lustre, their materiality echoes the fragile yet enduring nature of the stories imparted through objects when exchanged between the hands of generations. In remaking the jewellery as sculpture Rudhar pays bittersweet homage to the love and tradition that brought the original jewels into existence, while reflecting on the cultural divide that saw them no longer destined to be her own. Although tinged with lament, each sculpture is a poignant tribute that reconnects Rudhar with these items, returning them to her care.

Rudhar says of this body of work:

‘Being denied what would’ve been a collection of my very own heirlooms, these objects hold a sentimental weight that is complex. Their absence has prompted me to process some uncomfortable feelings about how they were taken from me, which feed into a greater feeling of disconnection from my Indian heritage and family. I memorialize these pieces in the forms of large monuments, echoing the gravity of their loss, and embodying the labour required to reforge these connections.’