Outerwhere is a series of winter coats with embellished linings that tell stories of migration and healing in cold climates.
Series
Outerwhere
Created
2018-2023
Medium
Mixed media, used coats
Dimensions
Varied
2018
Goddess of Smallpox
Mixed media, coat
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Goddess of Smallpox creates a shrine for Mariamma, the Indian goddess of skin diseases, as she protects an original Hudson's Bay Point Blanket Coat from the ravages of smallpox introduced by British colonists into Indigenous communities on Turtle Island.
2019
Funkasia
Mixed media, coats
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Funkasia celebrates play and performance in diasporic South Asian LGBTQ+ communities as they existed during the early days of desi queer and trans identity formation.
2018
Secrets
Mixed media, coat
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Secrets holds many layers, each sharing an aspect of the artist’s childhood and adolescence, dreams and desires.
2019
Flight 182
Mixed media, coat
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Flight 182 offers a memorial to the 329 lives lost in the 1985 terrorist plane crash of Air India flight 182 over the Atlantic ocean.
2019
Disappearances
Mixed media, coat
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Disappearances uses braided hair and natural forms to speak of resilience and regrowth after the disappeared, missing, and murdered girls and women among the Indigenous communities in Canada and at the time of Partition between India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
2018
Dilli
Mixed media, coat
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Dilli explore nostalgia, memory and migration as experienced through food, music and textile.
2018
Cracked
Mixed media, coat
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Cracked speaks to the painful experience of putting oneself back together after the transformative journey of migration and reestablishing belonging.
2019
Bones
Mixed media, coat
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Bones uses felt to recreate the hip bone as a site of post-traumatic growth and resilience.
2018
Migrations
Mixed media, coat
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Migrations creates a journey of passage between two climates and landscapes under the watchful eye of the moonlight and trees and the many wishes tied to them.
2023
Lord Clive
Mixed media, coat
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Lord Clive recreates a colonial British Redcoat to tell a story of Partition, it’s legacy and the rebuilding of lives and homes, brick by brick.
2018
Inheritances
Mixed media, coat
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Inheritances offers ancestral protection and guiding wisdom across migration and loss.
2022
Visit Again
Mixed media, coat
Approx. 2 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 ft.
Visit Again honours the excitement of bustling Indian cities with their chaos and character and multi-faith charm.
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The winter coat is the single-most important garment of survival in Northern climates, offering physical and metaphoric protection in winter climates. Taking this garment as a starting point, Outerwhere shares stories of loss, regeneration, trauma, memory, resilience, reconciliation, and memorial as they are produced through transcontinental migration.
Each coat is sewn by hand with visible stitching and is an assemblage of toys, flowers, plastics, fibre crafts, found textiles, hair and other objects collected by the artist over numerous years.
Photos by Toni Hafkenscheid.