INTERCULTURAL Worldwide

Fab-Gallery presents,

INTERCULTURAL is a conceptually rigorous, painstakingly detailed portfolio exploring conventions of ethnographic perceptions through a series of costumed self-portraiture featuring Raj arrayed in the traditional authentic finery of various regions and nations — India, Mexico, Morocco, Japan, Jordan, Greece, First Nation, North America, Saudi Arabia, Hawaii, and with more versions added regularly as inspiration and occasion occur. Her own crossborder heritage and intercontinental family history first inspired her to embark on this serial self-transformation, in which her inviting countenance is revealed as ethnically morphic as she successively embodies both the epitome and increasing obsolescence of race-based constructs of identity. The larger than life scale, and the perfect regularity of Raj’s serene gaze and relaxed but formal front-facing pose creates a clean, almost classical structure within which comparisons are encouraged, as both differences and samenesses are celebrated equally, and attention to detail moves the story forward. In these images, audiences see the artist more deeply, and inevitably come to see themselves as well.

Nelly Furtado whose respective soundscapes are directly inspired by the art which they not only accompany, but whose forms they now physically inhabit. Through the magic of aluminum photographic printing and integrated sound projection technology, the soundtracks created for specific works emanate from within and behind the images themselves. This happens at an enveloping human scale, so that an aural environment grows in and around the optical experience of the works in a way that transcends what either could do alone. Sound makes for not only a more complete aesthetic experience, but saliently provides a new and perhaps unexpected entry point into the work and its meaning, magnifying the magic, and deepening the sense of connection between the artist and her audience. Furtado’s work with INTERCULTURAL is based on the world music sensibility of fusion and multi-linguistic layering for which she is known, and was inspired by the parallels between her story and Raj’s.