Drought Mask
2021 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
34.29 x 15.24 x 19.05 cm
Rajni Perera
Drought Mask by Rajni Perera is a prototype that is suggestive of dire implications for human survival. Directly addressing the urgent climate crisis, specifically wide-spread drought, this sculpture imagines hybrid cultural aesthetics of the near-future after global collapse. Composed of various woven textiles complete with frills and fringes, leather, a gas mask, and pencil, Rajni’s mask prefigures future dystopian characters who are resilient and resourceful; self-fashioning tools for survival. The work is both talismanic and practical protection from a socially oppressive and/or potentially deadly atmosphere. Foretelling the surging visibility, and commodification, of face masks due to the Covid-19 pandemic (this work was made nearly a year before), Perera’s work speaks to the ever-accumulating manufactured and environmental assaults on our health and well-being. Synthesizing aesthetics across cultures, time periods, and crises, Perera’s mask constitutes a symbol of future mythology.
Rajni Perera’s practice foregrounds a hybrid model that merges immigrant politics, feminine power, mythology, and science fiction. Portending an unsettling near-term future, her sculptures and paintings consider alternative conceptions of futurity; counteracting the archaic narratives that perpetuate oppressive and homogenized aesthetics. Perera describes her work as a healing force that refigures repressive modes of representation and identity into means of reclaiming power. Perera’s work both foreshadows the effects of climate change, and imagines a cultural transformation in which those marginalized people who exist on the periphery can thrive.
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