By Asia Samachar | Malaysia |

Rajinder Singh, a London-based artist who has been away from Malaysia for some four decades now, caught a sight that he does not usually see at his exhibitions.

For the first time, he had a number of Sikh visitors coming to view his work on display at the Saffron Surrender exhibition in Kuala Lumpur, which ends next week (Sept 14).

“The exhibition has a lot of Sikh content. It deals with our relationship with the British colonial masters. For the first time in my career as an artist, I had a stream of Sikh visitors. I was pleased to see Sikhs inside the gallery, something I’ve never had before,” he told Asia Samachar.

‘Saffron Surrender’, which opened on Aug 17, displays large paintings of heroic Sikhs in various battle scenes. There are two sculptures with two looped films playing on the idea of the turban has a connection to the infinite. Rajinder had also launched a collection of poetry ‘Pale in Saffron’ as part of the exhibition.

“Everything in ‘Saffron Surrender’, the paintings, the poems, the sculptures suggest a way out of hundreds of years of colonial rule. It is talk about our colonial inheritances.

“Although this exhibition focuses on Sikhism, a religion I was born into and deeply admire, and the scar left in the body of a Sikh as part of its colonial inheritance. I paint with the hope to share my believe that our bodies, in general, are sites in which socio-cultural codes are mediated revealing injustices in our movement and our unequally distributed rights,” he said.

Reminiscing on his childhood in the state of Perak, Rajinder said he had been active in the local Sikh scene.

“I went to about 20 samelans [Sikh youth camps]. I was very active. I could recite the Japji and Sukhmani. I had learnt it by rote,” he said. Japji and Sukhmani are two compositions contained in the Sikh scripture Guru Granth Sahib and popularly recited by Sikhs.

Rajinder, who works from his studios in Dublin and London, dabbles in paintings, installations, photography, video and performance work.

He graduated with a PhD in Engineering (UK) in 1993 and a Master’s in Fine Arts (Singapore) in 2010. He was also recently shortlisted for both the Golden Fleece Award and EVA International Biennale 2022. He has taught as a guest artist/choreographer at the Irish World Academy, Maynooth University, and University College Dublin.

Asia Samachar caught up with him for an interview.

Tell us something about yourself?
I was born in a small town called Tanjung Rambutan near Ipoh in Malaysia. I write about my life growing up in small town Malaysia to Sikh parents in a small Sikh diaspora in my poetry collection ‘Pale in Saffron’. I now live and work in London. I have been away from home for over 40 years. I was always interested in the arts. In fact my first painting prize was from a competition run by a gurudwara in TR when I was about 10.

Your parents?

My parents Sant Singh and Sukhwant Kaur allowed me the time and space in my childhood to pursue my love for the arts and for my books. Dad was an accomplished mathematician and I got my love for maths from him. I went on to study engineering and mathematics at university. Mom was always there at home tending to our every need. She was also a talented seamstress and fabric artist. I got my love for fabric work and the arts from her.

What do you recall most fondly about Ipoh?

Growing up, I remember Ipoh for the education I received there. It seems to give you permission to explore and become and it did this with a certain carelessness that I appreciate now.

How did you end up becoming a full-time artist?

I grew up making things and drawing stuff. I was a prolific sketcher (often in my own time and in quiet corners) up until I had to stop. I came back to it in my 30s with the help of a mentor in Singapore. I was then able to turn my attention to it completely. I turned professional only at the age of 40.

In one interview, you mentioned that your work is more a result of collective memory rather than actual depiction of history. Please elaborate.

In my exhibition, I want to tell you a story. In fact, I want to tell you three stories of suffering that has left a suppurating wound from a past I do not know, from the collective memories of a community living away from a land they no longer belong to. Our reality is after all a bunch of stories we are told or we tell ourselves and I am picking three for you.

Collective memory shapes how communities like the Sikh diaspora in Malaysia, understand their past and define their present. My 3 stories for Saffron Surrender formed part of this collective memory and these stories are constructed and maintained through various cultural practices. My stories were communicated to me through my extended family and friends, during Samelans and Punjabi language classes and even during prayer meets at the gurdwara. They were also commemorated through the paintings and portraits we saw at our temples and at home.

However, collective memory is also selective and contested. We choose to remember certain things and we interpret history a certain way. This is where I think my work starts. I want you to reconsider the flaw in your perception of your past as a community. What have you missed? What can we reflect on to shrug off the burdens of our past? What is happening to you now might not be entirely your doing? There could be other forces involved.

What has been the most devastating impact of colonialism on Sikhs?
I know that I still today have difficulty NOT seeing the English as superior or correct however much I have had to reflect on the conditioning I have been subjected to make this assumption so insidiously rammed into my body.

I start ‘Pale In Saffron’ with the line ‘We are caught in the curvature of receding minds’. I want my paintings, my poems and my sculptures to be a ‘call to action’ to escape captivity while the dead master’s voice constantly urging us to abandon rebellion, to recede into a world that stays within the confines of our past.

And yet you now live in London, the heart of the once-upon-a-time empire? How do you view that?

I live and work in London today. And funnily enough this capital of my old dead masters is a city that espouses all my values and politics, it makes me want to be a better person, to respond to the call of activism to make the world a better place for all. My work, to orientate the vulnerable body, the colonised body in pain towards politics, towards its capacity for resistance first started here.

‘Saffron Surrender’ runs until Sept 14 (Saturday). The exhibition is available by appointment only. For appointments, call +60322601106 or email siewboon@weiling-gallery.com.

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ASIA SAMACHAR is an online newspaper for Sikhs / Punjabis in Southeast Asia and beyond. You can leave your comments at our website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We will delete comments we deem offensive or potentially libelous. You can reach us via WhatsApp +6017-335-1399 or email: asia.samachar@gmail.com. For obituary announcements, click here