Sreshta Rit Premnath

Sunroom Project Space 2011
Sunroom Project Space | October 22—December 1, 2011

Sreshta Rit Premnath’s art exposes and questions structures of knowledge, power, subjugation and mediation that pervade our culture. With Rhizome, Premnath explores the issue of patenting genes of indigenous medicinal plants from developing countries by multinational pharmaceutical corporations. This project focuses on the ginger rhizome, the common cooking ingredient with historically well-known medicinal uses in India and China. Despite the fact that this traditional knowledge has been shared for generations, the plant’s properties are being copyrighted by corporate entities for commercial use. In retaliation, various biopiracy taskforces around the world are contesting these patents.

In his Sunroom Project, Premnath has planted a garden of ginger plants in a “pillbox,” referring to the small box in which one may carry medicines, as well as to a partly underground fort used as a military outpost. This slanted, octagonal container represents a landscape under siege and serves as an island of ambiguous ownership. The photographs on the walls of the Sunroom depict sutured fragments of ginger that emphasize the amorphous shape of the rhizome, while also evoking a cryptic alphabet. The artist sees the ginger plant’s horizontal underground stem, which is formless and spreads randomly, as a metaphor for the worldwide distribution of ginger and other genetic material. While India and China are still the leading producers and exporters of ginger, the plant travels through complex global networks from rural farms to trucks, sorting facilities, cargo ships and finally to grocery stores around the world.

Premnath received an MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, and was a 2008 studio fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program. He has had solo exhibitions at Galerie Nordenhake in Berlin, Germany; Gallery SKE in Bangalore, India; and the Islip Art Museum in East Islip, NY. In 2010, he showed the solo project Zero Knot at Art Statements, Art Basel, Switzerland. His work has been included in group shows in Paris, New York and Hong Kong. Residencies include the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship in Umbria, Italy; the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME; and the Yale-Norfolk Painting Residency at Yale University. In 2011, Premnath was awarded an Art Matters Foundation Grant. He is the founder and co-editor of the magazine Shifter.

Visit Sreshta Rit Premnath’s website to learn more about his work. 
View press release 

Organized by Assistant Curator Gabriel de Guzman, the Sunroom Project Space provides an opportunity for New York-based emerging artists to develop a special project or create a new body of work to exhibit in a solo show. The artists exhibiting in the 2011 season are Meghan Gordon, Claudia Weber, The Friendly Falcons and Their Friend the Snake, Caitlin Parker, and Sreshta Rit Premnath. 

Public Programs
November 20, 2011, Meet the Artist

Rhizome, 2011 
Ginger plants, soil, wood and four metallic C-prints mounted on Sintra
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist

The Sunroom Project Space series is supported in part by the Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation. Additional support for the Visual Arts Program is provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc., the Dedalus Foundation, Inc., The Greenwall Foundation, The New York Community Trust, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts , celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties. Sustaining support for Wave Hill is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

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