Ideas Of Home (2018)
Born in Bombay, Rhett D’Costa migrated to Australia at an early age. His practice-led research draws on his hybrid background of British, European, Australian and Indian cultures and its ongoing relationship to colonial and post-colonial theory, extending across drawing, painting and installation processes.
D'Costa's most recent pan-disciplinary projects have centred on the ‘right to belong’, exploring the role of resilience and optimism in the intersecting areas of migration, multiculturalism, identity, nationalism and belonging. His research has focused on ideas connected to culturally composite ethnicities, mixed-race communities and the porosity of place, belonging and identity formation. These interests take into account shifting social and political circumstances and the tensions and consequences of mobility and migration in complex transnational environments.
The premise for this exhibition, Ideas of Home grew from an early encounter D'Costa experienced with Indian miniature painting the first time he went back to India, almost 33 years ago and 15 years after his family immigrated to Australia. During this trip, D'Costa became enamoured by the colour combinations and the pictorial spaces of Indian court paintings. These memories have informed Ideas of Home and D'Costa's relationship to place, home and belonging. Oscillating between India – his ancestral place of birth, and Australia, his adopted homeland, this exhibition explores D'Costa's circumstances of living in the world, as experience, present engagement and future evolving deliberations.
