Born in Kolkata in 1963 and now based in New York, Rina Banerjee has established herself as a singular voice in the global contemporary art scene. Drawing from her experience of migration and diasporic identity, Banerjee creates intricate, richly layered sculptures and installations out of everyday materials like cotton threads, feathers, shells and glass chandeliers. Her practice, informed by both engineering training and fine art education at Yale, navigates the intersections of postcolonial history, feminism and global exchange, often infusing critical perspectives with a subtle, disarming sense of humour.
‘You made me leave home…’ at Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo is an exhibition of 19 works drawn from the collection of the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Organised as part of the foundation’s ‘Hors-les-murs’ programme, which brings major artworks to venues around the world, the exhibition marks both the 20th anniversary of the Espace Louis Vuitton and a decade of the ‘Hors-les-murs’ initiative.
Spanning installation, sculpture and painting, the exhibition foregrounds Banerjee’s ongoing exploration of migration, colonial legacies and the circulation of people and objects. At its core is the monumental installation In an unnatural storm… (2008), presented publicly for the first time by the Fondation. Suspended from the ceiling in a cascading constellation of forms, the work evokes both the wonder and instability of global journeys, drawing inspiration from Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days.
Alongside this, recent works such as Black Noodles (2023) and a new 2025 painting series extend Banerjee’s inquiry into identity as fluid, hybrid and transnational. Blending references to Indian miniature painting, Chinese silk traditions and Mesoamerican imagery, her compositions oscillate between abstraction and figuration, often conjuring enigmatic female figures reminiscent of reimagined goddesses.
Through its sensuous materiality and conceptual depth, ‘You made me leave home…’ offers a compelling meditation on displacement and belonging.
