British Indian artist Bharti Kher has been commissioned by Powerhouse Parramatta to create a large-scale public artwork for the forthcoming museum, which is slated to open later this year in Parramatta, Western Sydney. Titled Tree of Life, Kher’s project is a seven-meter-tall, totem-like bronze sculpture of four heads stacked atop one another, encapsulating themes of ancestral memory, interconnectedness, and community.

Born in 1969 in London and currently based in New Delhi, Kher works across sculpture, installation, and painting to explore questions of spirituality, cultural hybridity, and the idea of the self. In her oeuvre, she draws on her Indian heritage, often incorporating the motif of the bindi—a dot-shaped mark traditionally worn on the foreheads of South Asian women, which also represents the all-seeing third eye “that forges a link between the real and the spiritual-conceptual worlds,” as she put it in a press release.

An extension of her Intermediaries series (2016– ), Kher’s Tree of Life will be installed at the entrance of Powerhouse Parramatta, featuring a bronze base and clay fragments from figurines that she found in secondhand markets in India. Through these material and cultural elements, the artist reimagines the sacred tree from Hindu mythology, which symbolizes divine protection, while also paying tribute to the Indian community in Parramatta, where more than one-third of the residents have Indian ancestry. 

In a statement, Kher noted, “Just as Powerhouse Parramatta serves first and foremost as a meeting place—both harkening to the site’s past where the mountain and coastal people communed and also as a modern-day cultural hub for Sydneysiders of all backgrounds—Tree of Life embodies an artistic message of commonality and an ode to nature.” 

Emily Ng is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.