Osheen Siva

0:07 Hi everyone thank you so much for coming I'm very happy to be here as he had mentioned before I'm actually leaving back home tomorrow so this is such a nice ending to my trip but yeah today.

0:20 I thought I'd take you through a little bit of my journey so far my Inspirations and what I kind of aim to do in the future yep B Miss Tam text I am a multidisiplinary artist from taminadu in South India I work in a lot of different mediums digital illustration was the beginning but now I kind of have expanded into murals and performance art. And installations and textile work as well I thought I'd take you through some of my commission work so fars and how they have been kind of influenced by my personal illustration and projects and finally I'll talk you talk to you a little bit about the show that has opened or was open and has now unfortunately closed so as you can see my work is quite colorful bold very much inspired by my dullet and thummer Heritage I see that the body of my work is kind of in an intersection with cast and gender and conservation and futurism I try and create characters that are kind of more evidently South Indian and is recognizable to me and my community especially in the space of sci-fi which I kind of grew up around like animations and comic books and y gibli I was so such a nerd about them.

2:02 But it was always kind of hard to see like brown bodies or just South Asian culture in general right.

2:11 So that was kind of a space that was interesting for me to explore so this is like an archival imagery of pictures that I've taken when I go back home to VOR and thean you can see that a lot of it is is being translated into my work especially the pop colors the image in the right is actually in my neighborhood in VOR there's an image of my parents getting married somewhere on the right hand side also I'm very much inspired by like hand painted typography which is unfortunately like a dying art in India but in like rural areas you can like see them very evidently thriving so I actually started out as I have a kind of a convoluted way of getting into what I'm doing now I studied fashion but didn't actually end up doing anything in that space I worked as a graphic designer for a long time and started kind of illustrating on the side when I felt a little bit unfulfilled and a little jaded you can see that being translated into the comics here the inability to wake up in the morning on time and feeling like I was just floating around I actually started illustrating as a way of journaling my emotions and thoughts at that time and pre pandemic I had quit my job as a graphic designer and had a lot of time on my hands so continued kind of documenting like everyday life in the form of comics and illustrations this this particular series talks about like the misinformation that was going on during the pandemic and also images like these are personal projects as well just the feeling of being stuck inside and my addiction to the phone and doom scrolling at that time. And so my work is also kind of gone through phase of me trying to figure out who I am what I want to say and you can see that with my personal projects during the pandemic I had also moved to Goa and I was kind of inspired by nature and being surrounded by Nature so I started creating characters that were kind of interconnected with with nature and as I was putting out personal projects on social media and just on my website I started getting commission for for the similar like similar mind space and similar thought processes from Brands and organizations these were created for a conservation and conservation organization in Goa and Bombay this is the commission that I did for absolute on the right for women's day I wanted to explore kind of interconnectedness and solidarity amongst women and um this is about the time where.

5:31 I also try to kind of reinterpret Indian mythologies into a more contemporary context and I wanted to explore thoughts on like menstruation being a taboo and kind of re interpret that in a more accessible and understandable way.

5:54 This is a more recent commission for New York Times I find that my work because it's so bright and colorful it's I hope that it's maybe like a more engaging and easily accessible way to talk about things that are a bit more dark and serious and you can also see I also started exploring with mural commissions and graphic graffiti art this was done in taminadu my hometown it features I was quite inspired by the fisher woman folk in in Chennai and I wanted to explore th typography it translates to Providers and protectors I wanted to use colors and textures and represent the community in which my my sort of canvas exists in these are some of the other examples this was also when after kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to say I've also made some personal kind of commission projects sorry in kind of encp encompassing quer culture I find that my work. And I are kind of growing at the same time as I try to explore different kind of ways in which I want to say what I what I want to wow brain freeze basically I'm trying to grow and use the platform of visual language as a way to find more about myself if that makes sense and this was a commission that I did for it's snat based on one of my favorite drag queens ever Sasha Valour this is a series of commission that I did for an organization called ad in the US they work on policym and try and see how different communities are affected by by policies in different countries right.

8:18 And I found that it was important for me to kind of seek out and use use my visual language as a way to collaborate with organizations and organizations and Publications that have more relevant sociopolitical context this was a series for a journalism journalism organization in India called the Caravan they do they're one of the only ones that are kind of transparent and are kind of visceral in the news that they that they put out. And this particular issue was talking about ramayana in from a different kind of lens D and Muslim lens and I've also tried to do collaborations and commissions for anti- cast based organizations that uses like evidently iconic dallet imagery for instance the dallet History Month illustration was done for equality Labs that works on kind of empowering and educating in the anti cast space I've also started kind of exploring different mediums I'm always interested in doing you know just trying different things that are interesting oh yeah sorry about my gigantic face on the side but this was actually a collaboration with an organization in Singapore called Studio objects we essentially tried to find things that we have in common in Singapore culture and th culture essentially mostly because there were lots of migrants that went from taminadu to Singapore as you can see we tried to find architecture and colors and patterns and try to make it a bit more immersive over the years I've also wanted to kind of get back in touch with making things by hand and couple from a couple of years ago I've been kind of sketching and making paintings and it it eventually kind of morphed into doing exhibition spaces that incorporated different different mediums that I was exploring kupu is the most recent show that I did at bonington Gallery it's my first kind of UK institutional show Kupa the word itself translates to Black and thummer I wanted to use the show itself has many different mediums including like drawings and paintings and textile work I essentially wanted toate create a universe that was inspired by speculative fiction and sci-fi and kind of reclaim Indian mythology so historically in like Indian mythology and scripture there were always good guys and bad guys and the bad guys were more often than not inspired by the lower cast people which is the community that I belong to so I wanted to use sci-fi and speculative fiction as a way in which you can kind of reinvent the past and connect the past and the present to imagine a more hopeful future I was also very much inspired by after futurism and how like artists like Octavia Butler and many many others I love how they use used tropes such as mutation and hybridity and for me it was a way in which it was a metaphor to kind of overcome the arbitrary structure that is the cast system in India and by infusing it with sci-fi and speculative fiction it was an interesting way to kind of Imagine an empowered future so the show itself just kind of combined the practice all the different medium and practices that I've done so far it was interesting to paint the walls themselves and put the paintings and textile work in them it was a good way to kind of situate the audience into this portal that I wanted to create that kind of embodied equality and diversity and an anti- cast ethos right. There are also certain specific kind of icons that are easily recognizable in the anti cast space for instance the par drum is used in the paria community which I belong to we historically used to be drum players for funeral processions and for like news in in towns and you know we were historically discriminated for for that as well.

14:02 So I wanted to kind of reinvent that and see how that would be situated in this imagined kind of future I also liked using as I mentioned before hybridity and mutation as a way to imagine new characters and create almost like an alternate archive and an alternate way of Storytelling and narrative that could eventually be expanded into much more these are some of the textile textile artworks this is the show itself I also very intentionally chose the color of blue to paint over in the gallery because blue is blue is a symbol of kind of coming together and unity in Sky it's also the color of our delet flag aider who was the one of the pioneers of anti cast space and also made the constitution of India he was always known for wearing blue suit.

15:14 So I kind of wanted to incorporate that and be inspired by using things intentionally and yeah this is one of the pictures of the show itself as you can see it. That's a lot of my graphic design background and love of comic books and sci-fi has kind of accumulated into oops I'm so sorry accumulated into this space and yeah.

15:44 I think moving forward my intention is to kind of represent the community that I belong to the Dela community and also other marginalized communities in forms of joy and togetherness and yeah create and envision a better future beyond the arbitrary structures that kind of exist today yep that's me thank you