Jagdeep Raina draws on traditional artistic forms such as stitching and weaving, repositioning them as tools for reinterpreting archives and uncovering ecological, diasporic and other political struggles. At the biennial, Raina is showing a series of embroidered tapestries that evoke traditional Kashmiri weaving techniques, rooted in the region from which the artist’s family originates. Referencing the shared craft practices between the regions of Punjab and Kashmir from the 18th century onward, these works are vivid depictions that resonate with the artist’s homeland both materially and thematically. Shown alongside are pieces from the artist’s Beautiful Zameen (Beautiful Land), a series of stitched textiles influenced by the cultural, political and environmental fallout experienced in Punjab as a result of the Green Revolution, which was a US and foreign-backed agricultural policy in 1960s India. Beautiful Zameen resonates with contemporary agrarian protest movements in India as well as Türkiye’s own pesticide crisis, bridging geographies through shared environmental precarity.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991, Guelph) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer who currently lives and works in New York. In his practice, Raina utilises the archive in order to explore historical memory. His multimedia projects seek to identify the residue left behind by the human touch, as well as its restorative potential. His works have been exhibited in the solo exhibitions Destroyer, Art Gallery of Burlington (2024); Towards the Valley, Galerie Anne Barrault, Paris (2023); Beautiful Zameen, COOPER COLE, Toronto (2022). Group exhibitions include When one language licks another, Below Grand Gallery, New York (2025); autohistorias (autohistories), Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris (2024); Memory is the Seamstress, Green Art Gallery, Dubai (2023).
EXHIBITED WORKS
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991)
Punjabi Pesticide Suicides, 2022
Embroidered tapestry, phulkari border on muslin
48.3 × 38.1 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Cooper Cole Gallery
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991)
Moon Garden Punjabi Birds, 2020
Embroidered tapestry, phulkari border on muslin
68.6 × 25.4 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Cooper Cole Gallery
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991)
Janwar Belles, 2024
Embroidery on muslin
13 × 7.5 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Anne Barrault
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991)
Chemical Cotton Hands, 2020
Embroidered tapestry
40.6 × 17.8 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Cooper Cole Gallery
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991)
I Will Dream Of Peace, 2022
Embroidered tapestry, kashmiri embroidered ambi on naturally-dyed muslin
35.6 × 27.9 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Cooper Cole Gallery
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991)
The Bones In Her Skin, 2024
Embroidered tapestry, phulkari border on hand-dyed cotton
28 × 19 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Anne Barrault
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991)
The End, 2023
Embroidered tapestry
17.1 × 7.6 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Cooper Cole Gallery
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991)
In This Lake Of Bones, 2023
Silk and cotton embroidered tapestry
67.3 × 25.4 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Cooper Cole Gallery
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991)
The Boy In The Fields, 2024
Embroidered tapestry, phulkari border on hand-dyed cotton
28 × 18 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Anne Barrault
