Graduate Studies

Interdisciplinary Master's in Art, Media and Design (MA, MDes and MFA)

Sheetal Prasad

Mohur

For this installation, I made casts of resin coins by using my Nani’s (maternal grandmother) mohur to make a mould out of rubber silicone and then cast with resin. I used white sewing thread to hang on a series of thin nails. The end result makes the coins appear nearly invisible.

“My family originates from the Fiji Islands, but my ancestors before them (great-great-grandparents) were from India. After the emancipation and abolishment of slavery, Britain decided to enforce indentured servitude in its place and sent thousands of Indians to Fiji from 1834-1917, ‘promising’ them 5 years of good-paying work and nice working conditions in exchange for 5 years of working in the sugar and fruit plantations. Instead of what was promised, my ancestors, along with countless others, were subjected to terrible abuse from their British supervisors (terrible working conditions, high suicide rates, and low wages). During this time, the girmityas/coolies would take some of their wages and buy gold or brass and turn it into coin pendants called the ‘mohur’. Since the 1980s, Indo-Fijians (including my parents and relatives) have been migrating to Canada, either fleeing from the coups (Fiji had 4 coups) or to seek better opportunities, as the Fijian economy itself had been in a decline until the 2010s. Their translucency symbolizes the haunting and trauma my ancestors endured during indentureship and the fact that they were passed down meant that trauma, too, was passed down.”