Living and working on Gadigal land, the Indian-Romanian Australian artist Monica Rani Rudhar explores the notions of grief and longing associated with cultural displacement. Rudhar's tactile art-making methodologies enable her to reconnect with the domestic, artisanal, and medicinal practices present in her family's history while recalling the emotional ties that weave together the tissue of her heritage.

 In 'They tell me not to forget', 2021; and 'A Scent That Fills All Spaces' 2021, two delicate ceramic water vessels evoke the body engaged in domestic actions—the filling and carrying of the vessels. Featuring arch-shape tiny holes that resemble architectural features of decorative niche walls or even windows, the vessels, with their luxury golden lustre glazed surfaces, nod to the interconnection of Rudhar's practice with a lineage of gold jewellers. 

As vivid telegrams from the past, the work 'Drawing The Curtains' transverses time restaging the aromas of the artist’s childhood home and the smell of her parents' cooking. Assembled as a curtain-like wall hanging, the work engages with the aesthetic qualities, texture and scent of traditional southwest Asian spices and traces back to Ayurvedic therapies commonly practised by the artist's ancestors. 

Drawing on her own family history, Rudhar works serve as an archival and oral testimony that aim to preserve intergenerational knowledge in the context of diasporic movements. 

— Felipe Olvares