Spandita Malik
Nā́rī - Threads of Identity
September 3 - October 1, 2022
Blue Sky is pleased to announce 2021 En Foco Fellowship Exhibition, Nā́rī - Threads of Identity by Spandita Malik.
Spandita Malik is a visual artist from India, whose work often addresses women’s rights and gendered violence. Her ongoing project, Nā́rī, features embroidered photographic portraits made in collaboration with women in India. ‘Nā́rī’ is a Sanskrit word meaning woman, wife, female, or an object regarded as feminine, but it can also mean sacrifice. Malik explores these ideas in a series of intricate and intimate portraits, eleven of which are on display.
Malik believes that there is a legacy being passed among women through the language of embroidery and handcraft. A language inherited by generations of women and passed along, to break the oppressor by simple but significant hand movements captured on fabric, written in Thread.
Malik’s research on rape culture led her searching for women in India in self-help groups where women learn embroidery as a way to gain financial freedom. Malik traveled to three different places known for culturally distinct embroideries: Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh (chikankari embroidery on mulmul or voile fabric); Jaipur in Rajasthan (gota-patti or zardozi embroidery on khadi fabric); and Chamkaur Sahib in Punjab (phulkari silk thread embroidery on khaddar or cotton fabric). She visited women confined to their homes by husbands or fathers or by their own safety concerns and interviewed them to learn about the harsh social and economic realities and domestic violence many of them face. She photographed them in their homes, using these settings not only as “safe spaces” in which to share stories, but also as intimate backdrops for the portraits.
In the quest of seeking truly authentic representations and consciously decolonizing the eye in documentary photography of India, Malik printed the portraits on fabrics of the specific regions and asked the women to embroider them as they wished. She provided no guidelines, instead giving them agency over their own images and allowing them to embed their silent stories.
Embroidering over the printed photograph is an artistic and cultural intervention by each woman, offering physical evidence of her touch. These threads and embellishments create a direct link between the eye of the artist and the hand of her subject, with each thread carrying a trace of identity. If the photograph conveys an unspoken message from the artist, “This is how I see you, the needlework answers, “This is who I am.”
In-Person Artist Talk, Saturday, September 3
Spandita Malik (she/her) (Indian, b. 1995) is a visual artist from India. Her work is concerned with the current global socio-political state of affairs with an emphasis on women’s rights and gendered violence. Malik specializes in process based work in photography, recently with photographic surface embroideries and collaborations with women in India. Malik’s work in expanded documentary and social-practice consciously emanates from the idea of decolonising the eye and aesthetic surrounding documentary photography of India.
Malik received her MFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design in 2019, where she was awarded the Dean’s Merit Scholarship, Photography Programmatic Scholarship and Graduate Travel Grant Award. She has been awarded LensCulture Critics' Choice Award(2022); The 30: New and Emerging Photographers Award (2022); En Foco Photography Fellowship (2021) and Firecracker Photographic Grant (2020). Malik was nominated for the Foam Paul Huf Award (2020) and was a finalist for the Inge Morath Award (2022) and Aperture Portfolio Prize (2021). She was chosen for The Silver Arts Projects Residency, NY (2021); The Center for Photography at Woodstock Artist in Residency Program, Woodstock, NY (2021); Bemis Center of Contemporary Arts (2021); Baxter St Workspace Residency in New York (2020); Feminist Incubator Residency by Project for Empty Spaces in New Jersey (2020). Malik’s work has been featured in Artnet, Artsy, Art Spiel, Buzzfeed, Crafts Magazine, Elephant Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Musée Magazine, The Hindu and she was named ‘Ones to Watch 2020’ by British Journal of Photography. Malik has exhibited work nationally and internationally at Photo London with indigo+madder gallery, 21c Museum, Sharjah Art Foundation, Jane Lombard Gallery NY among others. Malik is currently an AICAD Post Graduate Teaching Fellow at Kansas City Art Institute.