To shape the evolution of this series, I explore different media and materials to create life-size drawings of my body in motion.
In this second iteration of the Body Drawings, I work with the deeply fraught, symbolically loaded, and unilaterally revered material that colors Hindu womanhood:
sindoor.
The red powder pigment is evocative of Sindoor, a material applied to a Hindu woman's forehead to signify marriage and her arrival to Hindu womanhood.
In other performances where I interact with very different materials, I allow my body to determine the course of the piece.
When performing with this material, however, I require that my body interact with it under restraints.
The often puritanical ideals of Hindu womanhood are a thing I can neither fully realize nor access. It is something I can only lightly touch, and that too, only when acting with grace and restraint.
