Contemporary Art Practice
In my PGDP year, I had undergone multiple shifts in my artistic practice. Last semester, my works fit within the overarching framework of ‘vulnerability,’ as they centred around themes of self-reflexivity, mental health, sensitivity and discomfort. Through my unabashed expression of vulnerability, I started employing ‘radical softness’ as a political gesture of resistance, especially considering my positionality as a ‘dismissable’ female artist, through work focused on the embodiment of an emotional state. Thus, resisting spaces that assign value to ‘rationality’ or ‘indifference.’ My final project marks a checkpoint in my line of inquiry as I step outside of my lived reality and begin to focus on the external. Through research, establishing my positionality as a neurodivergent student, and recontextualising narratives within the contexts of institutional critique and disability justice, I explore how ‘the personal is political.’ Stepping outside the boundaries of self-introspection, delving into an inquiry of the larger social structures around me, and observing the intersections between them, positions my art practice in “Within-Without.” “Touch-Me-Not” and “Cotton Mouth” were categorised into ‘Identities’ for their articulation of the personal. My final project fits into ‘Action,’ as my work empowers vulnerable student and teacher bodyminds to resist neurotypicality in educational spaces, by nurturing solidarity and questioning the institution. This showcases my shift towards the external as my art practice begins assimilating into the values and frameworks of the disability justice movement.
In my time at Srishti, I zoomed into my vulnerable facets through works grounded in self-reflection and sensitivity. A consistent subtheme prevalent in my body of work is ‘sensitivity as disruption/resistance’, which I reached after considering my positionality as a female artist. A quote by Mary Oliver, “Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves”, perfectly encapsulates my intention to depict my own ‘soft animal’ or my ‘within’ through art expression. From this exploration, I began zeroing into visual expressions of my mental health, with works like ‘Cotton Mouth’ which depicts my dream-like state of anxiety, and “Touch-me-not” which visualises my debilitating freeze response in the face of conflict. Thus, my form of resistance until this point was through showcasing my sensitivity and vulnerability unabashedly. During my final project, I arrived at the next stage of my inquiry by expanding my conceptualization from self-introspection to the socio-political contexts of institutional critique and disability justice. I am firm in my outrage towards the lack of access to mental health care and the multiple societal systems built against neurodivergence (for instance, educational institutions). “Decision Points in the Classroom” marks an important checkpoint in my emergent line of inquiry as I step outside of my lived reality and begin to focus on the ‘without’- i.e. the practice of research, establishing my positionality, and contextualising personal narratives within socio-political factors to strengthen my practice.
