Esha Pillay & Quishile Charan
We Do Not Have Enough to Satisfy Our Bellies
7
November 2019
7
Nov
2019
29
Nov 2019
7UP
We Do Not Have Enough to Satisfy Our Bellies
Esha Pillay & Quishile Charan
7
November 2019
7
November
2019
29
November 2019
7UP
1920 marked the end of all Girmit contracts under indentured labour. Indenture—the colonial sugar economy built for Empire and colonial states such as Australia and New Zealand—was crumbling under the labour sabotage acts of resistance led by coolies or girmitiya. The 1920 strike was inevitable: tensions in the country were reaching a zenith as food shortages increasingly affected girmitiya; the cost of living had surpassed daily wages; Empire was grasping for a control that was, at last, surpassing its reach; state-sanctioned paranoia was growing; and anxieties that the British Empire would introduce a new system of bonded labour spread across the coolie community. The girmitiya were awaiting their new future and decided to take political action to combat a colonial state that had only seen them as labouring units—animals that toiled in the fields. The phrase “we do not have enough to satisfy our bellies” was uttered, screamed, and pleaded throughout historical moments up to and during the 1920 strike.
This new exhibition re-visits the strike through archival material, secondary sources, oral accounts, and newspaper articles to dismantle the ever-present colonial and patriarchal voices that dominate and steal these narratives from the female girmitiya who led this strike. We Do Not Have Enough to Satisfy Our Bellies centres female girmitiya acts of resistance as brave and courageous at a time of increased violence. This exhibition will unfold both onsite and online, examining how descendents take up their responsibilities to respect and uphold their female ancestors—women routinely forgotten within Girmit history. The research surrounding the strike will be presented online as a shared labour between Esha Pillay and Quishile Charan, this collaboration is a form of maintaining and building friendships that act as a contemporary undertaking of resistance tactics led by female girmitiya, strengthening bonds for female descendents, and pool the few resources at our disposal. Charan will highlight key points of the 1920 strike onsite through hand-made textile banners that adorn and memorialise these acts of resistance. In conjunction with an essay created in collaboration between Charan and Pillay, the exhibition will include commissioned texts from Kris Prasad and Roshika Deo, with further historical information unfolding across an Instagram residency.Undoing History’s Spell on Bad Women: Counter-colonial narratives of the female Girmit role in the 1920 labour strikeEsha Pillay & Quishile Charan
1920 marked the end of all Girmit contracts under indentured labour. Indenture—the colonial sugar economy built for Empire and colonial states such as Australia and New Zealand—was crumbling under the labour sabotage acts of resistance led by coolies or girmitiya. The 1920 strike was inevitable: tensions in the country were reaching a zenith as food shortages increasingly affected girmitiya; the cost of living had surpassed daily wages; Empire was grasping for a control that was, at last, surpassing its reach; state-sanctioned paranoia was growing; and anxieties that the British Empire would introduce a new system of bonded labour spread across the coolie community. The girmitiya were awaiting their new future and decided to take political action to combat a colonial state that had only seen them as labouring units—animals that toiled in the fields. The phrase “we do not have enough to satisfy our bellies” was uttered, screamed, and pleaded throughout historical moments up to and during the 1920 strike.
This new exhibition re-visits the strike through archival material, secondary sources, oral accounts, and newspaper articles to dismantle the ever-present colonial and patriarchal voices that dominate and steal these narratives from the female girmitiya who led this strike. We Do Not Have Enough to Satisfy Our Bellies centres female girmitiya acts of resistance as brave and courageous at a time of increased violence. This exhibition will unfold both onsite and online, examining how descendents take up their responsibilities to respect and uphold their female ancestors—women routinely forgotten within Girmit history. The research surrounding the strike will be presented online as a shared labour between Esha Pillay and Quishile Charan, this collaboration is a form of maintaining and building friendships that act as a contemporary undertaking of resistance tactics led by female girmitiya, strengthening bonds for female descendents, and pool the few resources at our disposal. Charan will highlight key points of the 1920 strike onsite through hand-made textile banners that adorn and memorialise these acts of resistance. In conjunction with an essay created in collaboration between Charan and Pillay, the exhibition will include commissioned texts from Kris Prasad and Roshika Deo, with further historical information unfolding across an Instagram residency.Undoing History’s Spell on Bad Women: Counter-colonial narratives of the female Girmit role in the 1920 labour strikeEsha Pillay & Quishile Charan
Esha Pillay
I am a writer whose stories connect with the women who came before me: my grandmothers and great-grandmothers, all the ammas. I’m Fijian-born with roots in Lautoka and Labasa and currently live in the U.S. My research focuses on intergenerational traumas among Indo-Fijian communities and the connection between the colonial violence of indentured histories that manifest in present-day traumas. The function of caste violence throughout Girmit, its impact on descendants and the lived experiences of my family is another key area of my research. Being Madraji, I also highlight the experiences of indentured labour communities who came from South India. I hold a M.A. in Migration and Diaspora Studies from SOAS, University of London and work in education and web design.
Quishile Charan
I am an Indo-Fijian textile maker and writer living in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa. Craft was gifted to me through being my Aaji’s namesake and encompasses language, identity, story-telling and a place of healing. I create textiles that nurture craft as a form of generational exchange and love. Stitching and threading together memories and stories, I uphold the values of textile making and craft as a cultural knowledge system and a way to actively challenge colonial violence. I work to affirm the significance and importance of craft through the relationships with the women in my family. Another aspect of my work is the centering of Indo-Fijian women’s narratives of resistance and oral stories that are excluded historically, in the archives and in academia. By bringing craft and textile work together with my research on the silencing of Indo-Fijian women's narratives, I seek to challenge hierarchies of silencing women's labour and their histories. I am of Girmit and pākehā descent.