on India and its
Diaspora’s Heritage
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WORK by RANJEETA KUMARI
Ranjeeta’s practice is anchored in visual experiments with which she questions the aesthetics of labour, displacement and migration. Using photography and found objects, her aims are to create a visual identity of the marginalised.
Portraits of Women (Poetry of Resistance) (2018 -2021) 40 frames of collected old sari
Detail from Portraits of Women (Poetry of Resistance) (2018 -2021)
Inspired by the sujani work of women - where old clothes in the household are repurposed into brilliantly coloured patchwork quilts (kantha) - and the poems of Bhikhari Thakur that celebrate women's labour, ‘Portraits of Women (Poetry of Resistance) is made of collected saris in the household and framed in order to elevate them to an art object status, which is denied to traditional makers of sujani.
Detail from Portraits of Women (Poetry of Resistance) (2018 -2021)
Women's labour in households are unwaged and invisibilised; bahujan (‘marginalised masses’) women's even more so. Yet so much care, creativity and patience goes into it and these objects rarely get elevated to craft status, let alone art. Generations of labour histories thus remain buried in quilts, kanthas and sujanis. Ranjeeta's work dares to give them the status of art that they deserve.
Detail from Portraits of Women (Poetry of Resistance) (2018 -2021)