Profiles on Practice Podcast

Profiles on Practice is a new podcast series hosted by curator Nadia Kurd exploring the work of women artists of colour in Canada. The podcast is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts through the Digital Originals initiative and is housed on the website of Femme Art Review, a publication providing space for women and LGBTQ2+ voices that aims to reflect on art and culture in a dynamic, engaging way.

In this episode, I have been interviewed by Nadia about the trajectory of my work and it’s relationship to fashion and capitalism. Have a listen.

Upping the Aunty, An Addendum

I was honoured to be a invited to be a part of Critical Aunty Studies, an online “Asynchronous Symposium” created by drag artist and Mellon Bridge assistant professor at Tufts University, Kareem Khubchandani.

In this video performance, I take you through the initial ideas that led to the development of my painting series “Upping the Aunty”. I share interesting anecdotes and useful critique of the fashion and style blogs as they relate to aunties. (duration 8:55)

Queer Kinships and South Asian Migrations

During the pandemic when opportunities to talk with other artists in public forums was rather low, I was invited to have an online discussion with Rajiv Mohabir, a poet and Kareem Khubchandani, an academic on the subject of Queer Kinships and South Asian Migrations as explored through our respective work. The virtual event was hosted by Tufts University. You can find a recording of the conversation here.

Rajiv is the author of multiple poetry and chapbooks including The Taxidermist’s Cut, a finalist for the 2017 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry. Kareem is the Mellon Bridge Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Drama & Dance and the Program in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Tufts University teaching at the intersection of performance studies and queer studies.

CSAC Artist Residency Award

I am delighted to have been selected as the first-ever 2020 Artist-in-Residence at the Centre for South Asian Civilizations (CSAC) at the University of Toronto Mississuaga (UTM).

The CSAC artist-in-residence provides funding to a contemporary artist for the winter semester (February-April) to develop site-responsive and site-specific work in any format on campus. The purpose of the residency is to disrupt existing forms of on-campus engagement through the use of contemporary art.

Over the next several weeks, come visit and participate as we hand-wash clothes, prompting discussion of the role and lifecycle of clothing and it’s care in the care of self and others around the world while taking into consideration the role of class, caste, gender, colonialism, capitalism, religious nationalism, and the environment.

I look forward to using contemporary art to disrupt the campus environment and generate body-based activity and critical conversation. Our collective survival depends on it.

As the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted my planned on-campus activities, I had to change my proposed project to a stay-at-home residency. I am still interested in the initial themes, however my methods of investigation and creation have changed. While the residency has officially ended, I continue to work on this project that I have titled Unskilled. You can read about the updated project and its progress here.

CAA Podcast with Arti Sandhu

Arti Sandhu is an Associate Professor in fashion design in the College of DAAP, at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA and is the author of Indian Fashion: Tradition, Innovation, and Style. Arti invited me to have a conversation with her for the College Art Association Podcast series. In “Politics, Privilege, and Craft in Indian Fashion” we spoke about art, design, fashion, and craft in India and the diaspora along side Kashmir, saris, and the limits of mainstream fashion. Have a listen.