INDIGO – Laura Kina & Shelly JyotiPosted in Arts, Asian Diaspora, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2011-05-13 03:36Z by Steven |
INDIGO – Laura Kina & Shelly Jyoti
Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts
2043 North Miami Avenue
Miami, Florida 33127
2011-05-14 through 2011-06-30
Opening Reception
2011-05-14, 14:00-21:00 EDT (Local Time)
Laura Kina, Associate Professor Art, Media and Design and Director Asian American Studies
DePaul University
Shelly Jyoti, Visual Artist, Fashion Designer, Poet, Researcher and Independent Curator
In the 19th century, Bengal was the world’s biggest producer of indigo but today, the deep blue color of indigo is synthetically created in a lab and is associated in the West with blue jeans more than its torrid colonial past. But indigo holds a sustained presence in the post-colonial identity of India. Employing fair trade embroidery artisans from women’s collectives in India and executing their works in indigo blue, Jyoti and Kina’s works draw upon India’s history, narratives of immigration and transnational economic interchanges. The artists decided to collaborate in 2008-2009, considering their mutual interest in textile history, pattern & decoration. They began by thinking about the intersections of their own ethnic and national positions in relation to fabrics. For this exhibition in particular, Jyoti’s Indigo Narratives utilize traditional embroidery and embellishments along with heritage symbols belonging to traveling ethnic communities who settled in coastal Gujarat while Kina’s Devon Avenue Sampler series focuses on a contemporary Desi/Jewish community in Chicago. This exhibition includes new works in mediums such as hand-embroidery on khadi, acrylic on fabric, hand-stenciled Sanskrit calligraphy and textile embroidery on canvas.
For more information, click here.