Cheryl Mukherji

Exhibited works:

Promise Me, 2020

Video, 7‘37“ 

Self-Portrait with Maa (2), 2020

from the series “Ghorer Bairer Aalo”

“My work is an exploration of my origin and inheritance, which is embedded in the figure of my mother. It deals with memory, transgenerational trauma, personal and collective histories, and how they inform identity. Using interdisciplinary mediums – including photography, installations, printmaking, writing, and video – I center and engage with women’s presence and experiences in the family albums that I brought with me from India to the United States when I immigrated.

Overall, my practice is inspired by family albums as an archive, and very specifically by my relationship with my mother. A primary instrument of self-knowledge and representation, these albums celebrate success, leaving out depictions of trauma, grief, and mourning from its pages to perpetuate the myth of an Ideal Family. Like a manifesto, they declare their intentions and motives through candid or staged photographs. In my practice, family albums are an entry into domestic labor: not the washing of dishes or the house cleaning, but the work it takes to stay related to someone, even my mother.”