In Pieces by Twinkle Banerjee
SITE #4:
Stanley A. Milner EPL
Twinkle Banerjee
In Pieces
VENUE ADDRESS: 7 Sir Winston Churchill Sq NW, Edmonton, AB T5J 2V5
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Twinkle Banerjee, In Pieces 1, 2022. Photogram, Colored Darkroom Paper.
In Pieces explores the lost memories of a collage book that Twinkle’s mother had made while growing up in 1970s India, which was lost during the separation of Twinkle’s parents. Experiments with photograms (images taken without using cameras), these photos are samples of what its pages could have looked like.
ARTIST STATEMENT
“The work is inspired by my lost and broken memories of my mother’s collage book, which she had made while growing up in 1970s India. ”
After I was born, this book became my object of interest, and I would play with it all the time as a child. However, it was lost due to my parents' abrupt separation when I was seven. As the years went by, I lost the memories from my childhood before that traumatic event, including the memory of this book. A few years ago, and as I became aware of my mental health conditions due to developmental trauma and started working towards processing my past, some memories started resurfacing. One of the resurfaced memories was of this collage book. Upon confirming the existence of the book with my mother, I created samples of what its pages could have looked like, experimenting with photograms (images taken without using cameras), that are reminiscent of the flashbacks I’ve encountered over the years.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Twinkle Banerjee (She/Her) is an Indian-Canadian visual artist who works primarily with photography and alternative photo processes. Her work explores how colonization has shaped her identity, mental health, and family history, tracing its ongoing effects in present-day West Bengal and examining the interconnections between mental health, intergenerational trauma, and the body. She is mindful of the pressure many BIPOC artists experience to continually create work centered on trauma. In response, she strives to balance critical inquiry with self-care, often incorporating introspection, play, and moments of amusement into her practice. These lighter explorations serve as necessary counterpoints to the emotional intensity of her subject matter. As a neurodivergent artist with ADHD and Complex PTSD, she finds strength in working across multiple projects simultaneously. This nonlinear process allows recurring themes to emerge organically, reflecting a common thread in her practice: the relationship between her internal landscape and its external expression. In her studio practice, she works with various photographic processes, primarily darkroom techniques, and experiments with camera-less image-making and installation-based approaches. This material exploration allows her to translate abstract experiences of memory, fragmentation, and healing into physical form.
She has exhibited in the USA, Canada, the UK, the UAE, and Armenia. She has been published in Berlin by the prestigious Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Foundation and featured on CBC. In 2021, her work "Characters of Memorial Park" was part of an exhibition and publication at the ICP-New York, and in 2022, it was exhibited at the Sharjah Art Foundation. Her most recent exhibition was at the 14th Photoville Festival in New York.
Instagram: @twinkleismyrealname
Website: https://www.twinklebanerjee.com/