Plantation is a new solo exhibition by artist Rehana Zaman, exploring land use, labour and environmental collapse through the experiences of agricultural workers.
The exhibition includes two new films presented within an immersive sculptural landscape. The films Soft Fruit (filmed in Angus, Scotland) and Jo Kherray so Khaey (filmed in Punjab, Pakistan), follow migrant seasonal workers, sharecroppers, tenants and day labourers as they pick, prepare and transport cash crops.
Plantation explores the nature of work on modern industrial farms driven by the accumulation of profit, extractive processes that exhaust and deplete both land and worker, and an increasingly precarious labour force positioned according to class and caste.
Candid conversations and scenes of rebellious, collective gathering appear alongside observational footage in shifting visual formats – from high-definition video to 16mm, and CGI inspired by medieval Islamic cosmography – building a layered sense of time and place.
The installation extends this world into a sculptural environment riffing off agricultural structures, such as polytunnels and cooling tents, transforming the gallery into an immersive landscape of light and sound.
