LA Times
Art that points toward a sustainable future in the middle of a climate crisis
BY TIMESOC STAFF
JULY 21, 2021 6:32 PM PT
The Anthropocene Epiphany: Art and Climate Change
https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/entertainment/story/2021-07-21/art-that-points-toward-a-sustainable-future-in-the-middle-of-a-climate-crisis
Radio Zindagi, Jagte Raho, interview, Host Shailaja and Yamini Dixit
15_feb-_resilience_through_words-_pallavi_sharma.mp
15_feb-_resilience_through_words-_pallavi_sharma.mp
Radio Interview ' with Pallavi Sharma 'Dil Ki Awaaz'
Host: Namrita Yuhana, and Yamini Mitter
KLOK 1170 am ,
soundcloud.com/dil-ki-awaaz-660882324/pallavi-sharma?
chatoveracuppa.com/2016/10/21/meghdoot-the-cloud-messenger/
MeghDoot – The Cloud MessengerPictures : Provided by and Copyright of Inner Eye Arts .
Written by : Piya Mukherjee Kalra
The artist and curator talking about “Meghdoot” at the exhibit.
In the year 1997, a young artist, was exploring and studying different art forms and mediums as part of her doctorate (PhD). For the artist, there was no limit to art forms – paint, performance, visual art and words, she was exploring it all. The same year she immigrated to a new country. In the foreign land, every thing was new and needed to be built up again. You could hole yourself up in a room and wait till destiny changes its course. Or you could take a copy of the papers of your thesis in your pocket, step out of home, strike a conversation with absolute strangers and ask them if they could make a paper boat of one of those thesis papers. And then with those paper boats, you could create art installations.
Paper boats that have the footprint of many, stories of many, conversations with many. The isolation and alienation of a foreign place made the artist fall in love with collaboration and that has remained her signature style even after almost two decades.
I wrote about the Liquid Stories Art Exhibition a few days back. Of the many exhibits, there is one that has been curated and created by the artist in my story above.
“ MeghDoot” by Pallavi Sharma has an assortment of clouds that have art inscribed on them and stories written with them. Stories that have been written and contributed by several people from all walks of life. Stories that are personal yet relatable. Imagine a wall covered with clouds and the clouds covered in art and stories. Stories of identity, displacement, personal faiths and beliefs, trials and triumph, experiences and memories. These stories are liquid cause they are still forming and evolving.
MeghDoot literally translates to Cloud(Megh) Messenger(Doot). A cloud carrying a message or a story. A great Sanskrit poet, Kalidasa wrote a lyrical poem that was titled ‘MeghDoot’, the core narration of the poem describing how once a king in exile, sent a message to his wife through a cloud.
A few weeks back, in my mail arrived two pieces of clouds. How much can you write in a six inch by six inch cloud shaped object, I pondered. Sometimes just a few words are enough to tell a story. The first one that came to mind was about a woman’s identity, my own identity.
Who Am I ?
The mirror says, “ You are a woman, a mother, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a co-worker.”
I look back at the mirror and say, “But where am I ? Who am I ?”
I reached out to two others artists who have collaborated on creating the clouds and depicting their stories / messages.
Pam Wong is a paraeducator at a local elementary school and her story touched my heart. She talks about an autistic student of her’s whom she describes as being a very intelligent, curious, sweet boy who has a funny sense of humor. Pam often wonders how he will deal with his autism as he grows up. She wanted to capture his story in her artwork and offer him (and all others facing obstacles in life) a message of hope.
Pam tells me about the critical challenges the boy and many like him face – bullied and mocked by others for being different, noise sensitivity and learning difficulties. She has depicted the noise sensitivity in symbols representing noise and onomatopoeia in a “bubble-like” font, contrasted with the square “block” font of the boy’s response of “Shhh!” in an effort to block out the noise so he can better concentrate. She uses cryptograms to show the boys difficulties with words he does not understand. The viewers are welcome to decipher those cryptograms.
I am left speechless by her dedication to her work and her depiction of her love for people she cares for. I do not tell Pam, but I silently salute her.
Another artist, Vibhuti Juneja, had an hour long workshop with Pallavi and was told to articulate the unwritten/unsaid thought living within her. Sexual assault and why is it done ? – was her instant thought. Power, control, superiority,revenge, material hunger, one or all of it. The octopus with its evil eye can see 360 degrees and seeks opportunities all around, to catch a prey, to show power.
I had one more cloud to fill with words and a story. The second story that I chose to write is close to my heart. It is the story of many immigrants across the globe.
Where is home ?
I flew a 1000 miles away from home, carrying nothing but a dream. I chased the dream, built a new life and a new home.I had everything I had ever wanted for.
Yet, alone at nights, I yearned for home. The one that I had left behind. The one where I belonged.
This is just a preview. There are so many other stories on that wall. Stories that will touch your heart. Stories that you will find yourself in. Stories that have been in your heart forever.
There are very few people who are making such an enormous effort to bring together the community through art. It is not easy in this digital world. Show your support and appreciation. Be a part of these stories. Come and tell yours. Head out to the exhibition this weekend and you may have a cloud to add to the wall. Pallavi is always hungry to collaborate.
Pictures By : Pallavi Sharma from her art exhibit Liquid Stories.
Being Exhibited At : Lindsay Dirkx Brown Gallery, 12501 Acosta Blvd, San Ramon, CA till October 27, 2016.
Collaborating Artists: Pallavi Sharma with Vibhooti Juneja, Kyle Wong, Mira Bathwal, Piya Mukherjee Kalra, Pam Wong, Kavya Vipul, Indu Gupta, Tejal Sheth, Poonam Uppal, Namrata Misra, Kanchan Darftadar Fernandes, Nitya Garg, Tanvi Chichili, Meenakshi Arora, Akash Mankude, Joshua Vanan Uppal, Hayagreev Veeru, Anika Awasthi, Preeti Sharma, Sangita Shriwas, Sanika Shriwas, Pavani Prithviraj, Anupama Ramachandran, Jayanthi Srinivasan, Tanvi S. Thummala, Kavita Patel, Sreeya Yekollu, Nivedha Kumar
Pictures : Provided by and Copyright of Inner Eye Arts .
Written by : Piya Mukherjee Kalra
chatoveracuppa.com/2016/10/05/liquid-stories/
Stories that are evolving, still forming. Stories that have not yet been published or exhibited or told before. Stories that are not inscribed anywhere but are part of daily lives. Stories that have a beginning, but there is neither a climax nor an end. Stories that not just writers, artists and authors are churning out. Stories that are instead coming out from all walks of life, from people who are living those stories. Stories that have not formed yet. Stories that are liquid.
Stories and storytellers have a way of finding me or crossing paths with me. On a gorgeous summer afternoon, I sat with a room full of women watching and talking for a live TV shoot. As the shoot was wrapping up and we were running out of the door, a voice came from behind me, “You mentioned you write. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
The voice was that of Pallavi Sharma, an artist, performer, curator and storyteller. Pallavi is the founder of InnerEye Arts, an art organization that works to provide visibility to multidisciplinary artists of Asian diaspora in the San Francisco bay area. An artist who has showcased and performed her work on several platforms, she remains hungry to collaborate and curate more.
When immigrating into a new country, it could get very lonely. It could also get very challenging to keep your cultural roots and art forms alive. Pallavi explains that was the primary reason that very early on in her career she started reaching out to people and working with them. You can create your own art and be an artist or you can surround yourself with different art forms and artists, the latter is more enriching. She is currently also the board member at the Asian American Women Artist association.
The love for reaching out to others to know their stories and bring stories together instantly connected us(it is also the reason why this blog was born) and eventually led to an invitation to be part of her art exhibition called “Liquid Stories” that will bring together artists and non-artists to represent their stories through different art forms.Collaboration has been a key aspect of Pallavi’s work from very early on.
The mere mention of an “art exhibition” puts it in a secluded zone. There is a perception that it is an event meant exclusively for the artists and the art lovers and those that have a certain intellect to comprehend the art.
The exhibit “Liquid Stories” is all about breaking those barriers and notions. When an art is formed from collaboration and contribution of several people, artists and non-artists, it makes itself intensely rich, beautiful, diverse yet open and welcoming to others. It does not have a boundary sketched around it and it has stories that familiar and closer to everybody’s life. The stories that transcend borders, religions, genders and ethnicities. Human stories about emotions and memories, the journey of life, the black, the white and the grey.
In between our conversation, that has now extended beyond few minutes, I asked Pallavi how she worked on conceptualizing the idea of the show. She replied instantly, “Everything in today’s life is so dynamic and is always moving and changing. Nothing is formed yet. Nothing stays still. I was very curious about those stories. Stories emerging from our identity for example, I as an immigrant have a story and I as a woman have a story and both are still forming. They are liquid. You have similar stories too and yours will be different than mine. I want to hear and showcase it all.”
There is a certain energy in the conversation by now that intrigues me further. I learn that the exhibition will bring the work of twelve visual artists who have taken absolute freedom to explore their subjects in a state of flux. The have constantly grappled with the depiction of intricate narratives of the human mind and body, in forms of memories and expressions. ( We will cover those in detail in next few posts.)
Above – A few exhibits for the show from the installation this week.
The exhibition opens this weekend. Earlier this week,the installation of the exhibits were completed. An exquisite labor of love and a monument of stories. If you live in the bay area, please stop by. I am a minuscule part of the exhibition but never before have I felt so wonderful about sharing a story with the world in such a creative format.
Over the next few days, I will be sharing the stories behind few of the exhibited art work and the stories of the artists who have so passionately created them. The next post would be for an exhibit called “MeghDoot”, curated and created by Pallavi Sharma with contribution from many storytellers (includes two stories written by me).
Liquid Stories
Curated By : Pallavi Sharma
Lindsay Dirkx Brown Gallery, 12501 Acosta Blvd, San Ramon, CA
Participating Artists: Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, Normal Raja, Ingrain Nayar Gall, Judy Shintani, Samantha Thunder, Shailly Sharma Bhavnagar, Kelsey Myers, Reiko Fujji, Irene Wibawa, Shari DeBoer Salma Arastu and Negin Sharifzadeh
Pictures : Provided by and Copyright of Inner Eye Arts .
Written by : Piya Mukherjee Kalra
Featured Image : By Reiko Fujii ‘Distorted Memories” , Glass, 2016
Stories that are evolving, still forming. Stories that have not yet been published or exhibited or told before. Stories that are not inscribed anywhere but are part of daily lives. Stories that have a beginning, but there is neither a climax nor an end. Stories that not just writers, artists and authors are churning out. Stories that are instead coming out from all walks of life, from people who are living those stories. Stories that have not formed yet. Stories that are liquid.
Stories and storytellers have a way of finding me or crossing paths with me. On a gorgeous summer afternoon, I sat with a room full of women watching and talking for a live TV shoot. As the shoot was wrapping up and we were running out of the door, a voice came from behind me, “You mentioned you write. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
The voice was that of Pallavi Sharma, an artist, performer, curator and storyteller. Pallavi is the founder of InnerEye Arts, an art organization that works to provide visibility to multidisciplinary artists of Asian diaspora in the San Francisco bay area. An artist who has showcased and performed her work on several platforms, she remains hungry to collaborate and curate more.
When immigrating into a new country, it could get very lonely. It could also get very challenging to keep your cultural roots and art forms alive. Pallavi explains that was the primary reason that very early on in her career she started reaching out to people and working with them. You can create your own art and be an artist or you can surround yourself with different art forms and artists, the latter is more enriching. She is currently also the board member at the Asian American Women Artist association.
The love for reaching out to others to know their stories and bring stories together instantly connected us(it is also the reason why this blog was born) and eventually led to an invitation to be part of her art exhibition called “Liquid Stories” that will bring together artists and non-artists to represent their stories through different art forms.Collaboration has been a key aspect of Pallavi’s work from very early on.
The mere mention of an “art exhibition” puts it in a secluded zone. There is a perception that it is an event meant exclusively for the artists and the art lovers and those that have a certain intellect to comprehend the art.
The exhibit “Liquid Stories” is all about breaking those barriers and notions. When an art is formed from collaboration and contribution of several people, artists and non-artists, it makes itself intensely rich, beautiful, diverse yet open and welcoming to others. It does not have a boundary sketched around it and it has stories that familiar and closer to everybody’s life. The stories that transcend borders, religions, genders and ethnicities. Human stories about emotions and memories, the journey of life, the black, the white and the grey.
In between our conversation, that has now extended beyond few minutes, I asked Pallavi how she worked on conceptualizing the idea of the show. She replied instantly, “Everything in today’s life is so dynamic and is always moving and changing. Nothing is formed yet. Nothing stays still. I was very curious about those stories. Stories emerging from our identity for example, I as an immigrant have a story and I as a woman have a story and both are still forming. They are liquid. You have similar stories too and yours will be different than mine. I want to hear and showcase it all.”
There is a certain energy in the conversation by now that intrigues me further. I learn that the exhibition will bring the work of twelve visual artists who have taken absolute freedom to explore their subjects in a state of flux. The have constantly grappled with the depiction of intricate narratives of the human mind and body, in forms of memories and expressions. ( We will cover those in detail in next few posts.)
Above – A few exhibits for the show from the installation this week.
The exhibition opens this weekend. Earlier this week,the installation of the exhibits were completed. An exquisite labor of love and a monument of stories. If you live in the bay area, please stop by. I am a minuscule part of the exhibition but never before have I felt so wonderful about sharing a story with the world in such a creative format.
Over the next few days, I will be sharing the stories behind few of the exhibited art work and the stories of the artists who have so passionately created them. The next post would be for an exhibit called “MeghDoot”, curated and created by Pallavi Sharma with contribution from many storytellers (includes two stories written by me).
Liquid Stories
Curated By : Pallavi Sharma
Lindsay Dirkx Brown Gallery, 12501 Acosta Blvd, San Ramon, CA
Participating Artists: Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, Normal Raja, Ingrain Nayar Gall, Judy Shintani, Samantha Thunder, Shailly Sharma Bhavnagar, Kelsey Myers, Reiko Fujji, Irene Wibawa, Shari DeBoer Salma Arastu and Negin Sharifzadeh
Pictures : Provided by and Copyright of Inner Eye Arts .
Written by : Piya Mukherjee Kalra
Featured Image : By Reiko Fujii ‘Distorted Memories” , Glass, 2016
ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/05/19/artists-take-path-of-most-resistance-in-fight-against-displacement
/Artists Take Path of Most ‘Resistance’ in Fight Against Displacement
HuiMeng Wang and friends perform 'The Pure Reason We Dine Tonight,' an installation piece dealing with the cultural nexus of the dining room. (Photo: Mido Lee Productions)
By Creo Noveno MAY 19, 2016
SHAREThe sight across the street from SOMArts Cultural Center’s building encapsulates the gallery’s newest show to a T: a throng of rickety tents are propped up in the parking lot under the Interstate 80 overpass, its residents situated along the curb, registering as mere blurs to the busy drivers whooshing down Brannan Street.
Resistance, a show presented by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC), engages with issues of gentrification and displacement, a nearly ubiquitous conversation in increasingly expensive San Francisco.
Guests interact with Carlo Ricafort’s sculpture “The Leaning Power of Business,” a piece representing the empowerment and precarity behind business. (Photo: Mido Lee Productions)The show is part of this year’s United States of Asian America Festival(USAAF), whose theme, Civil Dis(place)ment, was directly inspired by a recent report showing 70 percent of surveyed artists in San Francisco experienced displacement from their workplace or home, according to Melanie Elvena, APICC’s artistic director.
As the exhibition title suggests, Resistance doesn’t take the issue lying down — the show not only offers Asian Pacific Islander artists’ own insights and experiences regarding different types of displacement, but also aims to empower and inform the communities directly affected by this threat.
“I ultimately want the show to not just be inspiring but also provide information — an informed individual is better equipped to make decisions on things they have greater understanding in,” says Pamela Ybañez, the show’s curator.
‘Resistance’ curator Pamela Ybañez poses for a portait at SOMArts Cultural Center. (Photo: Mido Lee Productions)Ybañez hopes to bridge the supposed divide between visual and activist arts through this show, which provides hands-on engagement with its audiences through an anti-eviction workshop and panel, as well as a collection of eviction resources listed in the back of the show’s catalog.
Art has been central in plenty of Bay Area social movements, as documented by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ recent show around arts and media activism, but according to Pallavi Sharma, a contributing artist to Resistance, it’s a continuous process that needs to be fostered across the board.
“If we become passive creators and audiences, we won’t be heard,” Sharma says. “When we (artists) engage and invest ourselves in our community, we can intervene into what is happening and help deal with the problem instead of just sitting on pedestals.”
Pallavi Sharma’s “Off The Map” repurposes home sales and political campaign signs to critique the impact of gentrification on society. (Photo: Creo Noveno/KQED)Gentrification and displacement in particular are issues whose effects are felt widespread, especially by disenfranchised groups such as artists and communities of color.
Eryn Kimura, whose pieces in the show touch on her family’s resistance against oppression, has been pushed out of the city herself (she currently teaches art in Japan). She believes that having a space in which a person can both thrive and exist is an essential human right repeatedly denied to these communities by the city of San Francisco.
“They put folks into affordable housing to survive, but none of these children are provided with art or resources — they don’t have adequate space to lead the lives they wish to make their mark on the world,” Kimura says.
Taking inspiration from Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Kimura also says that having work and living space allows a community to create a site of new knowledge where people can come together to share their ideas and take part in critical dialogue.
An audience watches Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong and Jonathan Relucio perform “Loiter,” a piece exploring gender dynamics and gentrification. (Photo: Mido Lee Productions)It’s this critical dialogue — between artist and audience, between different cultural groups under threat of displacement in the city — that Elvena hopes Resistance and the other USAAF events will inspire within the community.
“Art can transcend certain barriers,” Elvena says. “It can add to this ongoing dialogue to find a solution, and I think building solidarity and coming together is where the power is.”
Resistance is on view at SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco through May 26, closing with a panel talk featuring the show’s artists and other speakers. For more information, visit somarts.org.
EXPLORE: VISUAL ARTS, REVIEW
Crossing the Hyphen: Recent Works of Pallavi Sharma
A solo show curated by Demetri Broxton, at Addison Street Windows Gallery Berkeley, CA
The works of Pallavi Sharma resonate with a keen sense of absence amidst presence. Her assemblages incorporating vernacular objects, video, and performative bodies are run through with a sense of melancholy; not the selective sweetness of nostalgia, but the daily management of a small hole in the soul where a faraway home should be. For a child of Indian immigrants like myself, this sense of inchoate loss is as familiar as the saris, garlands, and clay pots that Sharma uses to construct her installations.
By juxtaposing culturally-resonant everyday objects with video, Sharma challenges the common misperception that the Indian experience is one that is fundamentally pre-modern. Despite the rise of Bollywood and of Indian technology companies, many in the developed world still imagine a place of timeless rural character and a slower pace of life. Sharma’s work reflects a contemporary urban India where the ancient and the futuristic jostle one another in the crowd. She pushes the issues yet further, focusing on the rights of women and of the poor whose interests are too often overshadowed in the rush to modernize.
Another distinction of Sharma’s practice is that she is one of only a few South Asian Diaspora artists who have so far embraced social and performative strategies in their art. Sharma’s installations are often accompanied by performances in which she inserts her own body and those of audience participants into her sculptural forms in order to activate these materials as sites of dialogue and compassion. Her art becomes not only a subject for interaction, but a means of realizing that interaction such that what might have initially appeared foreign or exotic becomes familiar and comfortable. There is a therapeutic aspect to Sharma’s work, a collective reconciliation that occurs on the order of Joseph Beuys’ famous exhortation to create “a social organism as a work of art.”[i]
In Pallavi Sharma’s installations, each viewer is engaged with the daily exultations and frustrations experienced by the artist as she negotiates a world in which her gender, race, and cultural origins are simultaneously sources of strength and of disadvantage. The experience her work engenders is one of empathy, which is in too short supply. Pallavi Sharma’s art is an effort to meet the metaphysical needs of a society in pain by creating sites where shared experiences and accidental kindnesses can occur.
Anuradha Vikram
Director of Residency Programs, 18th Street Arts Center
June 25, 2014
[i] Beuys statement dated 1973, first published in English in Caroline Tisdall: Art into Society, Society into Art (ICA, London, 1974), p.48.
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A solo show curated by Demetri Broxton, at Addison Street Windows Gallery Berkeley, CA
The works of Pallavi Sharma resonate with a keen sense of absence amidst presence. Her assemblages incorporating vernacular objects, video, and performative bodies are run through with a sense of melancholy; not the selective sweetness of nostalgia, but the daily management of a small hole in the soul where a faraway home should be. For a child of Indian immigrants like myself, this sense of inchoate loss is as familiar as the saris, garlands, and clay pots that Sharma uses to construct her installations.
By juxtaposing culturally-resonant everyday objects with video, Sharma challenges the common misperception that the Indian experience is one that is fundamentally pre-modern. Despite the rise of Bollywood and of Indian technology companies, many in the developed world still imagine a place of timeless rural character and a slower pace of life. Sharma’s work reflects a contemporary urban India where the ancient and the futuristic jostle one another in the crowd. She pushes the issues yet further, focusing on the rights of women and of the poor whose interests are too often overshadowed in the rush to modernize.
Another distinction of Sharma’s practice is that she is one of only a few South Asian Diaspora artists who have so far embraced social and performative strategies in their art. Sharma’s installations are often accompanied by performances in which she inserts her own body and those of audience participants into her sculptural forms in order to activate these materials as sites of dialogue and compassion. Her art becomes not only a subject for interaction, but a means of realizing that interaction such that what might have initially appeared foreign or exotic becomes familiar and comfortable. There is a therapeutic aspect to Sharma’s work, a collective reconciliation that occurs on the order of Joseph Beuys’ famous exhortation to create “a social organism as a work of art.”[i]
In Pallavi Sharma’s installations, each viewer is engaged with the daily exultations and frustrations experienced by the artist as she negotiates a world in which her gender, race, and cultural origins are simultaneously sources of strength and of disadvantage. The experience her work engenders is one of empathy, which is in too short supply. Pallavi Sharma’s art is an effort to meet the metaphysical needs of a society in pain by creating sites where shared experiences and accidental kindnesses can occur.
Anuradha Vikram
Director of Residency Programs, 18th Street Arts Center
June 25, 2014
[i] Beuys statement dated 1973, first published in English in Caroline Tisdall: Art into Society, Society into Art (ICA, London, 1974), p.48.
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Traveling Tale: Recent Works of Pallavi Sharma
A Solo Show at Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA
When looking at Pallavi Sharma’s most recent art I am reminded of Zarina Hashmi’s exhibition that was entitled, Home is a Foreign Place. Many of us who live in the United States have come from elsewhere. We now live in a very different society from whence we came. It is usually the small things that affect us most profoundly, especially the unseen rituals of daily life that we encounter. This can be disconcerting at first. It takes time before the humor and irony of such differences can be appreciated. In the exhibition A Traveling Tale, Pallavi’s installations are filled with such ironies and social disconnects that can be appreciated immediately by all who have experienced life in two worlds, yet may pose contextual questions for the uninitiated.
First and foremost what draws me to Pallavi’s work is her strong formalist approach. By taking quotidian objects and removing them from their usual environment and placing them as works of art, she both deconstructs the functionality of said objects and simultaneously invests them with meanings that transcend their original purpose. This is evident in Beyond Rituals, where she suspends five rolls of toilet paper above five lotas, brass pots used by villagers to carry water. As the paper descends into the lotas it resembles flowing water, allowing viewers opportunities to interpret the work in several ways. This is a puzzling and private ritual, which can be confusing, yet there is a certain humor in the concept, and a certain elegance in the execution of this piece. Pallavi has chosen to place just five lotas on circles of dirt, lining them up like bathroom cubicles adding to the humor of the work, and also to the underlying tension that leads to cultural misunderstandings.
When seeing The Melting Pot I am reminded of archaeological discoveries. The outer surface of each pot is covered in dried, cracked clay, yet the insides are polished and pristine. The pots are like pebbles of jade that reveal wondrous stones when cut open. The pots are the everyday karahais, tais, topia-patilas and parats, that are used by cooks, mainly women, throughout India to produce some of the most intricately spiced dishes made anywhere in the world. Just humble pots, clad in clay to protect the food from burning when placed on the live coals, yet in the genre of Duchampian found objects, they take on an exalted life when installed in an art gallery. They also invite viewers to reflect on their own used utensils that have accumulated patinas of age and memories. For immigrants such simple objects resonate with nostalgic memories of a homeland that is worlds away.
Titles are important in Pallavi’s work. They ground the work immediately. In the two works discussed above the titles suggest interpretations beyond what one may have first thought. Rituals in India, and in most of the world, are associated with life’s transitions, with religious and social ceremonies, with purification. Just a century ago, when Hindus traveled beyond their homeland it was believed that they would return polluted, therefore, rituals of purification had to be performed. By living in a foreign country everyone has passed beyond the acknowledged rituals of one’s own culture to absorb those of another’s. The Melting Pot presents the same dilemma of interpretation. In San Francisco, New York, London, in all the major cities of the world, we are living in the melting pot, yet the double entendre here also refers to the practicality of saving the pot from melting and by extension of saving something that substantiates our own identities.
Carry-On, a suitcase filled with barley seeds, is the case that Pallavi traveled with when she immigrated to the United States. Again, it is the associations that we all have with the term carry on, and our flights that take us around the country and around the world, as we leave a familiar place to locate in unknown territory, whether it is just another city another state, another country, or even going off to college. There is the strong pull of nostalgia when one reflects back on the journeys taken with a particular piece of luggage, but now it is coming to rest, seeds have been sown, and roots are being put down, in a new country where new customs will be absorbed.
One of the most enigmatic pieces in the show is an installation entitled, IT. IT is quite literally spelled out as a capital I and a capital T cut out of green artificial grass, on which has been carefully placed pairs of sandals and shoes, each painted with green camouflage designs. Either this is a riff on the environmentally correct Green Movement, or is it Pallavi and her family settling into their new milieu? We are left pondering––if this is It, then what is next? Will the shoes put down roots? Will they pair up with other different shoes? Will they break out of the security of their camouflage cover? As immigrants we are hyper aware of difference, camouflage helps us to meld in, to join the stew in the melting pot.
In this exhibition Pallavi raises through her art questions regarding identity, loss, separation, cultural differences and personal values. These are issues that she has had to face since coming to the United States, yet she is not alone. Most everyone has experienced the pangs of separation. They are a part of life, yet for immigrants they can be extremely disorienting experiences. There is always that sense of home being where one came from, and now the recognition is that Home is a Foreign Place.
Mary-Ann Milford-Lutzker
Mills College
Oakland, California
March 23, 2010
A Solo Show at Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA
When looking at Pallavi Sharma’s most recent art I am reminded of Zarina Hashmi’s exhibition that was entitled, Home is a Foreign Place. Many of us who live in the United States have come from elsewhere. We now live in a very different society from whence we came. It is usually the small things that affect us most profoundly, especially the unseen rituals of daily life that we encounter. This can be disconcerting at first. It takes time before the humor and irony of such differences can be appreciated. In the exhibition A Traveling Tale, Pallavi’s installations are filled with such ironies and social disconnects that can be appreciated immediately by all who have experienced life in two worlds, yet may pose contextual questions for the uninitiated.
First and foremost what draws me to Pallavi’s work is her strong formalist approach. By taking quotidian objects and removing them from their usual environment and placing them as works of art, she both deconstructs the functionality of said objects and simultaneously invests them with meanings that transcend their original purpose. This is evident in Beyond Rituals, where she suspends five rolls of toilet paper above five lotas, brass pots used by villagers to carry water. As the paper descends into the lotas it resembles flowing water, allowing viewers opportunities to interpret the work in several ways. This is a puzzling and private ritual, which can be confusing, yet there is a certain humor in the concept, and a certain elegance in the execution of this piece. Pallavi has chosen to place just five lotas on circles of dirt, lining them up like bathroom cubicles adding to the humor of the work, and also to the underlying tension that leads to cultural misunderstandings.
When seeing The Melting Pot I am reminded of archaeological discoveries. The outer surface of each pot is covered in dried, cracked clay, yet the insides are polished and pristine. The pots are like pebbles of jade that reveal wondrous stones when cut open. The pots are the everyday karahais, tais, topia-patilas and parats, that are used by cooks, mainly women, throughout India to produce some of the most intricately spiced dishes made anywhere in the world. Just humble pots, clad in clay to protect the food from burning when placed on the live coals, yet in the genre of Duchampian found objects, they take on an exalted life when installed in an art gallery. They also invite viewers to reflect on their own used utensils that have accumulated patinas of age and memories. For immigrants such simple objects resonate with nostalgic memories of a homeland that is worlds away.
Titles are important in Pallavi’s work. They ground the work immediately. In the two works discussed above the titles suggest interpretations beyond what one may have first thought. Rituals in India, and in most of the world, are associated with life’s transitions, with religious and social ceremonies, with purification. Just a century ago, when Hindus traveled beyond their homeland it was believed that they would return polluted, therefore, rituals of purification had to be performed. By living in a foreign country everyone has passed beyond the acknowledged rituals of one’s own culture to absorb those of another’s. The Melting Pot presents the same dilemma of interpretation. In San Francisco, New York, London, in all the major cities of the world, we are living in the melting pot, yet the double entendre here also refers to the practicality of saving the pot from melting and by extension of saving something that substantiates our own identities.
Carry-On, a suitcase filled with barley seeds, is the case that Pallavi traveled with when she immigrated to the United States. Again, it is the associations that we all have with the term carry on, and our flights that take us around the country and around the world, as we leave a familiar place to locate in unknown territory, whether it is just another city another state, another country, or even going off to college. There is the strong pull of nostalgia when one reflects back on the journeys taken with a particular piece of luggage, but now it is coming to rest, seeds have been sown, and roots are being put down, in a new country where new customs will be absorbed.
One of the most enigmatic pieces in the show is an installation entitled, IT. IT is quite literally spelled out as a capital I and a capital T cut out of green artificial grass, on which has been carefully placed pairs of sandals and shoes, each painted with green camouflage designs. Either this is a riff on the environmentally correct Green Movement, or is it Pallavi and her family settling into their new milieu? We are left pondering––if this is It, then what is next? Will the shoes put down roots? Will they pair up with other different shoes? Will they break out of the security of their camouflage cover? As immigrants we are hyper aware of difference, camouflage helps us to meld in, to join the stew in the melting pot.
In this exhibition Pallavi raises through her art questions regarding identity, loss, separation, cultural differences and personal values. These are issues that she has had to face since coming to the United States, yet she is not alone. Most everyone has experienced the pangs of separation. They are a part of life, yet for immigrants they can be extremely disorienting experiences. There is always that sense of home being where one came from, and now the recognition is that Home is a Foreign Place.
Mary-Ann Milford-Lutzker
Mills College
Oakland, California
March 23, 2010
East Bay Express
JANUARY 29, 2014 ARTS & CULTURE » VISUAL ART
Not Alone
The Berkeley Art Center's juried showcase highlights common themes surrounding place and belonging.
By Sarah Burke @sarahlubyburke
Juried exhibitions offer a diverse range of artistic method and argument, grouped solely on the basis of their outstanding status within their arts community. They're especially exciting when an unintended theme emerges amid the disparate statements, revealing an unconscious collaboration between the artists. Within Feature, this year's juried portion of the Berkeley Art Center's Artist Annual, an interest in the relationship of place and belonging bubbles beneath the surface of many of the works. Out of more than two hundred artists, Berkeley-based artist and juror Weston Teruya chose just eight who intrigued him most. Ultimately, the collection emerged as a harmonious chorus of textural melodies employing a variety of unconventional media.
Ealish Wilson, a UK artist now working in the Bay Area, negotiates a sense of place through intricate textile sculptures. In Feature, her large piece "Blue Ties" hovers ethereally above the rest of the works like a ghostly guardian. The piece is a sheet of rice paper hand-embellished with shimmering silver applique and molded into a sculptural pattern with hand-dyed blue zip ties, roughly resembling a cross between a Japanese shoji door and Hokusai's "Great Wave." At the show's reception, Wilson explained that her pieces hark back to her experience being mentored in Tokyo. Even though a decade has passed since then, the feeling of simultaneous discomfort and awe that accompanied her study of Japanese design aesthetics will always remain profoundly important to her work, she said.
Across the room, Pallavi Sharma's "Monsoon" consists of a swarm of paper boats that together form a human face with a video screen standing in for the eye. The piece was inspired by Sharma's experience of isolation following her move to the United States after receiving her Ph.D from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in India. The piece speaks to what Sharma sees as our society's dire need for community — to realize that we are all companions on a voyage. And to add a personal, cathartic touch, Sharma used pages from her doctoral thesis to build the boats.
Ann Schnake's "Tragic Potatoes" takes the idea of home to a more intimate level, calling attention to the body as our most crucial and fundamental habitation. The installation consists of a grouping of potatoes that have been surgically stitched, as if tended to like human wounds. Along with a ball of hair, the gruesome spuds are presented on a bundle of suture material. Schnake's experience as a former nurse has obviously influenced her work, which points to a collective bodily and ecological hurt.
Other exhibiting artists are Leigh Wells, Jane Norling, Joanna Kao, Toni Gentilli, and Marcela Flórez. Altogether they, make up a sincere and technically impressive group, challenging the East Bay Art community to expand its scope of both aesthetic originality and topical discussion.
Feature runs through March 2 at the Berkeley Art Center (1275 Walnut St., Berkeley). 510-644-6893 orBerkeleyArtCenter.org
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/not-alone/Content?oid=3823326
May 08, 2014Arts » Art & Museums
The Examiner
http://archives.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/eating-cultures-provides-food-for-thought/Content?oid=2792248
‘Eating Cultures’ provides food for thought By Janos Gereben
Janos Gereben is a writer and columnist for SF Classical Voice; he has worked as writer and editor with the NY Herald-Tribune, TIME Inc., UPI, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, San Jose Mercury News, Post Newspaper Group, and wrote documentation for various technology companies.
“Eating Cultures,” a small art exhibit at SOMArts Cultural Center, is an amazingly rich and varied collection reflecting moving human experiences.
Sponsored by the Asian American Women Artists Association and Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, the juried show of interdisciplinary works by 36 artists focuses on Asian foods in America and their impact on how Asian-Americans feel about their dual ethnicity. It also examines how the popularity of Asian and Asian-American foods — from chop suey to Korean tacos to sushi — affects the way Asian-Americans are perceived.
Margo L. Machida, professor of art history and American studies at the University of Connecticut, selected the works in the show, which was curated by Michelle A. Lee, Linda Inson Choy and Cynthia Tim.
In her mixed-media piece “Let’s Eat,” Oakland artist Susan Almazol uses turmeric, soy sauce, red beets and oil to stain a 29-by-41-inch sheet of paper that mimics her mother’s food-stained recipes.
“I am a Filipina,” Almazol explains, “and my work pays tribute to my 93-year-old mother and her cajoling her family to eat. I covered the sheet with my mother’s words, which she repeats because she has dementia: ‘Let’s eat. Sit down and get a plate. We have plenty of food. Did you get enough to eat?’”
San Ramon artist Pallavi Sharma’s large collage shows what an Indian bride cooks and serves for the family at the wedding reception. Her work intimates women’s subservience.
More puzzling is Berkeley Korean-American artist’s Jung Ran Bae’s piece, a string of 700 used Yogi tea bags, each with the tag offering advice for the day. Bae says it represents her addiction to Yogi tea and her ethnicity-free “inability to throw anything away.”
In addition to art, film and literary works, the show also features Asian-American oral histories, a pop-up shop, a wall where guests can share recipes, and other programming co-presented by Asia Society and the Culinary Historians of Northern California.
IF YOU GO
Eating Cultures
Where: SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan St., S.F.
When: Noon to 7 p.m. Tuesdays–Fridays, noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays; closes May 30
Tickets: Free
Contact: (415) 863-1414, www.somarts.org
Related events
Saturday: “Eating Asian America” is a panel discussion co-presented by the Culinary Historians of Northern California, 2 p.m.
May 17: “Literary Sriracha: A Spicy Mix of Poetry, Mini-Memoirs and Flash Fiction” is co-presented by Asia Society, 2 p.m.
May 30: A closing reception, community potluck and “Sausage Homage” performance by Genevieve Erin O’Brien is co-hosted by Community Health for Asian Americans, 6 p.m.
India West
‘underCurrents’ Exhibit Showcases So. Asian Women Artists
By Richard Springer, Staff Reporter
Asian American women artists confront unflinchingly with soul-searching individualism themes of identity, stereotyping, the “model minority” myth, and the demands of Asian and American cultures in “underCurrents & The Quest for Space,” an art exhibit continuing through May 25 at the SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco.
Four South Asian American women are among the 30 Asian American artists showcasing their works at the exhibition, presented by the Asian American Women Artists Association and the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center.
In a side room of the gallery, multidisciplinary artist Pallavi Sharma has mounted a two-minute video tableau dramatically projected into a pool of water.
Using the quote, “Jal bick meen pyaasi” (Fish remains thirsty in water), from medieval poet Kabir, she portrays how women can be “isolated by oppression,” she told India-West at a press preview May 2.
Sharma, who lives in San Ramon, Calif., is director of Inner Eye Art, an art consulting firm specializing in South Asian art. The Indian American artist has a B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the Faculty of Fine Arts Baroda and a Ph.D. in art history from India’s National Museum Institute of Art History. She has had recent art shows in Point Reyes Station and San Ramon, Calif.
India-born Samantha Chundur of Berkeley, Calif., a designer trained in architecture — in oil and acrylics in the style of Indian ikat textiles — uses census tract data to color code racial groups’ distribution in San Francisco in her one work in the exhibit. She quotes Martin Luther King, Jr., who said in tribute to racial diversity, “Always, always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”
Another Berkeley resident, Salma Arastu, who has shown her paintings internationally since graduating with a master’s degree in fine arts from India’s MS University, has two works in the show.
Born into the Hindu tradition, she later embraced Islam through marriage and lived in Iran and Kuwait.
In her note, Arastu said her works combine “lyrical human forms with Arabic calligraphy to convey celebration of messages of diversity, unity, love and compassion from the Quran for all people.”
The fourth South Asian woman at the show is poet Zilka Joseph, who presents a poem about a taxi ride in the U.S. Joseph is program manager at the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She has been nominated twice for a Pushcart prize and her poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review Online, Review Americana and other publications.
The SOMArts Cultural Center is at 934 Brannan St. in S.F. A free panel discussion on the issues facing Asian American women with guest Julie D. Soo, president of the San Francisco Commission of the Status of Women, will be held at the gallery May 25 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
http://www.indiawest.com/entertainment/global/undercurrents-exhibit-showcases-so-asian-women-artists/article_1856ca6f-1b56-5dd1-a830-aa38bb2b2516.html?mode=jqm
JANUARY 29, 2014 ARTS & CULTURE » VISUAL ART
Not Alone
The Berkeley Art Center's juried showcase highlights common themes surrounding place and belonging.
By Sarah Burke @sarahlubyburke
Juried exhibitions offer a diverse range of artistic method and argument, grouped solely on the basis of their outstanding status within their arts community. They're especially exciting when an unintended theme emerges amid the disparate statements, revealing an unconscious collaboration between the artists. Within Feature, this year's juried portion of the Berkeley Art Center's Artist Annual, an interest in the relationship of place and belonging bubbles beneath the surface of many of the works. Out of more than two hundred artists, Berkeley-based artist and juror Weston Teruya chose just eight who intrigued him most. Ultimately, the collection emerged as a harmonious chorus of textural melodies employing a variety of unconventional media.
Ealish Wilson, a UK artist now working in the Bay Area, negotiates a sense of place through intricate textile sculptures. In Feature, her large piece "Blue Ties" hovers ethereally above the rest of the works like a ghostly guardian. The piece is a sheet of rice paper hand-embellished with shimmering silver applique and molded into a sculptural pattern with hand-dyed blue zip ties, roughly resembling a cross between a Japanese shoji door and Hokusai's "Great Wave." At the show's reception, Wilson explained that her pieces hark back to her experience being mentored in Tokyo. Even though a decade has passed since then, the feeling of simultaneous discomfort and awe that accompanied her study of Japanese design aesthetics will always remain profoundly important to her work, she said.
Across the room, Pallavi Sharma's "Monsoon" consists of a swarm of paper boats that together form a human face with a video screen standing in for the eye. The piece was inspired by Sharma's experience of isolation following her move to the United States after receiving her Ph.D from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in India. The piece speaks to what Sharma sees as our society's dire need for community — to realize that we are all companions on a voyage. And to add a personal, cathartic touch, Sharma used pages from her doctoral thesis to build the boats.
Ann Schnake's "Tragic Potatoes" takes the idea of home to a more intimate level, calling attention to the body as our most crucial and fundamental habitation. The installation consists of a grouping of potatoes that have been surgically stitched, as if tended to like human wounds. Along with a ball of hair, the gruesome spuds are presented on a bundle of suture material. Schnake's experience as a former nurse has obviously influenced her work, which points to a collective bodily and ecological hurt.
Other exhibiting artists are Leigh Wells, Jane Norling, Joanna Kao, Toni Gentilli, and Marcela Flórez. Altogether they, make up a sincere and technically impressive group, challenging the East Bay Art community to expand its scope of both aesthetic originality and topical discussion.
Feature runs through March 2 at the Berkeley Art Center (1275 Walnut St., Berkeley). 510-644-6893 orBerkeleyArtCenter.org
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/not-alone/Content?oid=3823326
May 08, 2014Arts » Art & Museums
The Examiner
http://archives.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/eating-cultures-provides-food-for-thought/Content?oid=2792248
‘Eating Cultures’ provides food for thought By Janos Gereben
Janos Gereben is a writer and columnist for SF Classical Voice; he has worked as writer and editor with the NY Herald-Tribune, TIME Inc., UPI, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, San Jose Mercury News, Post Newspaper Group, and wrote documentation for various technology companies.
“Eating Cultures,” a small art exhibit at SOMArts Cultural Center, is an amazingly rich and varied collection reflecting moving human experiences.
Sponsored by the Asian American Women Artists Association and Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, the juried show of interdisciplinary works by 36 artists focuses on Asian foods in America and their impact on how Asian-Americans feel about their dual ethnicity. It also examines how the popularity of Asian and Asian-American foods — from chop suey to Korean tacos to sushi — affects the way Asian-Americans are perceived.
Margo L. Machida, professor of art history and American studies at the University of Connecticut, selected the works in the show, which was curated by Michelle A. Lee, Linda Inson Choy and Cynthia Tim.
In her mixed-media piece “Let’s Eat,” Oakland artist Susan Almazol uses turmeric, soy sauce, red beets and oil to stain a 29-by-41-inch sheet of paper that mimics her mother’s food-stained recipes.
“I am a Filipina,” Almazol explains, “and my work pays tribute to my 93-year-old mother and her cajoling her family to eat. I covered the sheet with my mother’s words, which she repeats because she has dementia: ‘Let’s eat. Sit down and get a plate. We have plenty of food. Did you get enough to eat?’”
San Ramon artist Pallavi Sharma’s large collage shows what an Indian bride cooks and serves for the family at the wedding reception. Her work intimates women’s subservience.
More puzzling is Berkeley Korean-American artist’s Jung Ran Bae’s piece, a string of 700 used Yogi tea bags, each with the tag offering advice for the day. Bae says it represents her addiction to Yogi tea and her ethnicity-free “inability to throw anything away.”
In addition to art, film and literary works, the show also features Asian-American oral histories, a pop-up shop, a wall where guests can share recipes, and other programming co-presented by Asia Society and the Culinary Historians of Northern California.
IF YOU GO
Eating Cultures
Where: SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan St., S.F.
When: Noon to 7 p.m. Tuesdays–Fridays, noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays; closes May 30
Tickets: Free
Contact: (415) 863-1414, www.somarts.org
Related events
Saturday: “Eating Asian America” is a panel discussion co-presented by the Culinary Historians of Northern California, 2 p.m.
May 17: “Literary Sriracha: A Spicy Mix of Poetry, Mini-Memoirs and Flash Fiction” is co-presented by Asia Society, 2 p.m.
May 30: A closing reception, community potluck and “Sausage Homage” performance by Genevieve Erin O’Brien is co-hosted by Community Health for Asian Americans, 6 p.m.
India West
‘underCurrents’ Exhibit Showcases So. Asian Women Artists
By Richard Springer, Staff Reporter
Asian American women artists confront unflinchingly with soul-searching individualism themes of identity, stereotyping, the “model minority” myth, and the demands of Asian and American cultures in “underCurrents & The Quest for Space,” an art exhibit continuing through May 25 at the SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco.
Four South Asian American women are among the 30 Asian American artists showcasing their works at the exhibition, presented by the Asian American Women Artists Association and the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center.
In a side room of the gallery, multidisciplinary artist Pallavi Sharma has mounted a two-minute video tableau dramatically projected into a pool of water.
Using the quote, “Jal bick meen pyaasi” (Fish remains thirsty in water), from medieval poet Kabir, she portrays how women can be “isolated by oppression,” she told India-West at a press preview May 2.
Sharma, who lives in San Ramon, Calif., is director of Inner Eye Art, an art consulting firm specializing in South Asian art. The Indian American artist has a B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the Faculty of Fine Arts Baroda and a Ph.D. in art history from India’s National Museum Institute of Art History. She has had recent art shows in Point Reyes Station and San Ramon, Calif.
India-born Samantha Chundur of Berkeley, Calif., a designer trained in architecture — in oil and acrylics in the style of Indian ikat textiles — uses census tract data to color code racial groups’ distribution in San Francisco in her one work in the exhibit. She quotes Martin Luther King, Jr., who said in tribute to racial diversity, “Always, always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”
Another Berkeley resident, Salma Arastu, who has shown her paintings internationally since graduating with a master’s degree in fine arts from India’s MS University, has two works in the show.
Born into the Hindu tradition, she later embraced Islam through marriage and lived in Iran and Kuwait.
In her note, Arastu said her works combine “lyrical human forms with Arabic calligraphy to convey celebration of messages of diversity, unity, love and compassion from the Quran for all people.”
The fourth South Asian woman at the show is poet Zilka Joseph, who presents a poem about a taxi ride in the U.S. Joseph is program manager at the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She has been nominated twice for a Pushcart prize and her poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review Online, Review Americana and other publications.
The SOMArts Cultural Center is at 934 Brannan St. in S.F. A free panel discussion on the issues facing Asian American women with guest Julie D. Soo, president of the San Francisco Commission of the Status of Women, will be held at the gallery May 25 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
http://www.indiawest.com/entertainment/global/undercurrents-exhibit-showcases-so-asian-women-artists/article_1856ca6f-1b56-5dd1-a830-aa38bb2b2516.html?mode=jqm
