Traveller 5

Traveller

 

5

About the artwork:

Traveller #5 (2019) by Rajni Perera belongs to a series of work, Traveller. This series is a sci-fi story celebrating immigrant resilience, which also asks questions about our current climate crisis. Perera is interested in the questions: “Who is alive after we burn the world,” “What do they look like?” and “What are they using to protect themselves?”

About the artist:

Rajni Perera was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1985 and grew up in a mixed Buddhist and Hindu community. Perera and her family immigrated to Australia and briefly to the United States before settling in Canada. Perera attended art school at Ontario College of Art & Design University (OCAD) in Toronto. Science fiction has always been at the heart of Perera’s work; visually and conceptually, it is her most important influence.

Please preview the short film and then share it with your students. Select one or two guiding questions that reflect your curriculum and can guide student research and inquiry connected to the artwork, artists, and the socio-cultural context in which it was created.

Guiding Provocations:

• How does this artwork reflect personal, cultural, and community identity and values of the artist?
• How does Perera’s view of the world affirm or disrupt your own worldview?
• In what ways does this artwork examine the power of the immigrant experience?
• Examine the criteria for science fiction. Explore how this work both supports and disrupts the canon of sci-fi.
• How does power and privilege play into the artists concept?
• In what ways does the artwork reflect different communities globally?
• What skills might the traveller need to thrive after an environmental catastrophe?
• Create an artwork, dance, dramatic scene, or creative writing piece that explores the power of your roots or your routes.
• Create an artwork, dance, dramatic scene, or creative writing piece that revisions our world, dismantling a social justice issue of today.
• Create an artwork, dance, dramatic scene or creative writing piece that explores life “after we burn the world”.
• Create an artwork, dance, dramatic scene, or creative writing piece that explores life celebrating immigrant resilience or Indigenous resistance.
• Use Traveller #5 as inspiration for a character. Create a dance, dramatic piece, short story, or graphic novel to tell the viewer about this traveller.
• Create a theme song for Traveller #5.
• How might have socio-political experiences of the artist and her community impacted her artmaking?