Reframing Home: How Colonial Art Histories, Diasporic Practices, and Global Power Structures Shape Belonging Across Mumbai, Perth, and Beyond
Original framing: “From Mumbai to Perth and beyond, Neha Kale considers, art, colonialism and ideas of home” — The Conversation - Global
Kale’s blend of memoir and criticism evokes a poetic, spiritual interrogation of home, aligning with traditions of Sufi mysticism and Indian *bhakti* that view art as a conduit for transcendence. This dimension enriches the narrative by linking personal expression to collective yearning.
Neha Kale's memoir spotlights personal artistic negotiation but obscures the entrenched colonial infrastructures that shape global art circulation and notions of belonging.
By foregrounding Indigenous land ethics, historic patterns of cultural extraction, and the lived precarity of marginalised creators, we see that home is co‑produced by power, policy, and collective memory. Cross‑cultural parallels reveal a shared diaspora struggle that can be addressed through community‑owned exhibition spaces, decolonised curricula, transparent market audits, and housing coalitions. These systemic interventions, informed by historical insight and future modelling, re‑balance the art ecosystem and re‑define habitation beyond the myth of the solitary return.