Shivanjani Lal is Fijian-Australian artist whose work uses personal grief to account for ancestral loss. Recent works have used storytelling, objects and video to account for lost stories of Girmitiya (Indenture) stories from the Indian and Pacific oceans centring women’s perspectives. Truth-telling and monument making has become a focal point of her research in an attempt to decipher what is lost and the possibilities of futures. Between 2017-18, Shivanjani sought to globalise her practice with a prolonged stay in India, which led to periods of research in Nepal, Bangladesh and Fiji.
Summer 2026
Installation / Film & Video / Performance / Socially Engaged Practice / Curatorial
Research Focus
As an artist who was born in Fiji and grew up in Australia Shivanjani has always felt on the edge of society. She is an islander and making work in another Island is an integral part of her work ethos. She is interested in the periphery and wants to use Dwell Here to interrogate ideas of wrong island time. She is invested in acts of return. Shivanjani plans to develop relationships broaden her global relationships outside of the Indo-Pacific region, to further afield. A primary concern in her work is how to communicate difficult histories with empathy, without transferring the violence of these histories to audiences.
More about the Dwell Here Residency
Dwell Here offers participants a simple proposition: to commit to this time and place while thinking deeply about its urgencies. Together we are curious to learn what can be activated or challenged through the process of dwelling. IMMA encourages reflection across the following themes to consider geographical, historical, political and cultural concepts of Ireland as a starting point to expand and connect international contexts through similarities and differences:
Technologies of Peace – to consider commemorative landscapes and memories of peace (as a dream, movement, or value) while generating perspectives on sustainable coexistence.
The Irish Paradigm – Welcomes artistic research that creates intimacy and connections, while celebrating the perceived agility and freedoms of operating on the periphery. As a small island on the edge of Europe, Ireland often has a challenging relationship with ‘the centre’.
The Museum as a Site of Vibration – consider how the museum and site can create new vibrations and rhythms within the built legacy of empire. How can museums make visible cultural shifts, including erased, censored or marginalised histories, as well as sustainability, planetary care, sharing and hospitality.