November 20–23, 2020
Hagan Gallery, Princeton University
Undergraduate thesis exhibition
“Put the rice in, and run cold water in to fill the pot so that
the chaff and light trash floats to the top. Some grains of rice
will rise, too, but save them.”
—Edna Lewis in the Taste of Country Cooking
Chaff & light trash surfaces overlaps, contradictions, and confusions between material symbolisms that emerge from histories of South India, where my parents grew up, and the Southern United States, where I grew up.
Fountain pumps, cochineal, madder, indigo, osage orange, silk, yak and wool yarns, carpet, plastic trays, copper pipe, plastic tubing
36 x 300 x 360 in
Yarns hang from a continous copper structure into the fountains, sucking up the dye over time. Each dye in the work has its own qualities—they differ in smell, viscosity, transparency, the texture of its foam and residue, and the sounds it makes while circulating.
Gesso, pokeberry, goldenrod, stick-on bindis, and transparencies on canvas
44 x 55 in
Velvet book cloth, silk and cotton fabric, hair, foundation, methyl cellulose, hair dye, collagen paper, turmeric
72 x 144 x 4 in
I dyed my hair and combined it with glue to make mixtures like paint or glitter glue. I applied this to the book cloth with makeup and turmeric dyed collagen paper. Turmeric is commonly applied to skin in South Asia to inhibit hair growth.
Hand-forged copper, karuveppilai (curry leaves), black peppercorns, ponni rice, Carolina Gold rice, wire, brick, silk cotton shibori, spray paint, steel, lamp
30 x 36 x 36 in
Three-channel video, cotton, linen, and wool yarns, moving boxes, fabric, paper, glass, seeds, and plastic
72 x 300 x 12 in
Cinderblock, brick, canvas tote bag, dyes, cardboard tube, cotton yarn
12 x 48 x 20 in each
The ikat printers are machines for printing on the threads in a time frame that overlaps with hand weaving. In traditional ikat, threads are tied and dyed; with this method, threads are painted with thickened dye. I looped four cardboard tubes, with a circumference equal to the width of the final weaving, through the handles of tote bags weighed down with cinderblocks and bricks. I wound threads closely together by rotating the tubes, then applied dye to print a pattern. Then threads from the printers are woven on the loom hanging on the wall, two picks at a time to allow a continuous connection to the printer; the thread can be pulled and the pattern can be built indefinitely.