Priyageetha Dia is an artist, whose work addresses the plantation histories of Southeast Asia and their contemporary legacies. Working with computer-generated imagery (CGI), she traces the links between technology, labour, and environmental destruction. She is a recipient of the IMPART Artist Award by Art Outreach Singapore in 2019.
Spectre System examines plantation corporatism and labour migration on the Malay Peninsula. Formerly one of the British Empire’s most profitable colonies, Malaya relied on indentured workers from South India. A computer-generated protagonist reveals this terrain as a repository of memory and site of racialised dispossession. The animation extends into the physical space through a large vinyl print on the wall, Mesh: Prelude to Spectre System, in which elongated hands with gleaming skin seem to guide, embrace, or entrap viewers. Through this immersive image the artist strives to dissolve the boundaries between the body and space and reveal the environment we inhabit as a container of countless histories and handprints.
Spectre System, 2024
Single-channel video, colour and sound, 15 min
Courtesy of the artist and Han Nefkens Foundation, Barcelona
Commissioned by Han Nefkens Foundation for the Diriyah Contemporary Art Beinnale 2024
Mesh: Prelude to Spectre System, 2024
Vinyl print
Courtesy of the artist
