“INTERCULTURAL is a conceptually rigorous, painstakingly detailed portfolio exploring conventions of ethnographic perceptions through a series of costumed self-portraiture featuring Raj arrayed in the traditional authentic finery of various regions and nations — India, Pakistan, Japan, Thailand, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Eritrea, Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Armenia, Mexico, Hawaii, First Nation, and North America. Her own cross-border heritage and intercontinental family history first inspired her to embark on this serial self-transformation, in which her inviting countenance is revealed

as ethnically morphic as she successively embodies both the epitome and increasing obsolescence of race-based constructs of identity. The larger-than-life scale and the perfect regularity of Raj’s serene gaze and relaxed but formal front-facing pose create a clean, almost classical structure within which comparisons are encouraged, as both differences and similarities are celebrated equally, and attention to detail moves the story forward. In these images, audiences see the artist more deeply and inevitably come to see themselves as well.

‘The intention of INTERCULTURAL is to enlighten cultural ideologies, initiate respect for diversity and unify humanity for a peaceful coexistence worldwide’.”