A Lexicon of Gut Feelings
Examining how our cultural memory is preserved, Jasleen Kaur takes inspiration from the archives of Touchstones, Rochdale. In this single edition artist book, Kaur explores ideas around inheritance and belonging, land and migration, ritual and healing.
“What do we find when we go looking for ourselves in the archive … how can we alter the course of history through a new script?
Part of a larger body of work, this book documents extracts from the group’s conversations that momentarily offer new classifications and missing voices. Printed on seed paper, the book will be read aloud and planted at Deeplish community centre during the exhibition, where the seeds can take root and become a living legacy for the future. Evolving from Institution to soil, ‘Gut Feelings Meri Jaan’ resists any archival logic or formal framework. What would be gazed at or read becomes digested or buried bringing the past, present and future of the archive and the power it holds under new scrutiny.
Changing mediums, transformative narratives
Exhibited at
This single edition artist book was exhibited as part of Jasleen Kaur’s solo exhibition Gut Feelings at Touchstones Rochdale 2021. Commissioned by UP Projects and funded by Heritage Lottery Fund, Foyle Foundation, the Garfield Weston Foundation, Rochdale Borough Council and Arts Council England.
Jasleen Kaur
Jasleen Kaur (b.1986, Glasgow, Scotland) is an artist based in London. Her work is an ongoing exploration into the malleability of culture and the layering of social histories within the material and immaterial things that surround us. Her practice examines diasporic identity and hierarchies of history, both colonial and personal. She works with sculpture, video and writing.
Recent and upcoming commissions include Wellcome Collection, UP Projects, Glasgow Women’s Library, Market Gallery, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Eastside Projects and Hollybush Gardens. Her work is part of the permanent collection of Touchstones Rochdale, Royal College of Art and Crafts Council.