INDIGO Exhibition and Lecture Schedule

“Not a chest of indigo reached England without being stained with human blood”, an Englishman in the Bengal Civil Service is said to have commented. In the 19th century, Bengal was the world’s biggest producer of indigo but today, the deep blue color of indigo is synthetically created in a lab and is associated, in the West, with blue jeans more than its torrid colonial past. But indigo holds a sustained presence in the post-colonial identity of India. Employing fair trade embroidery artisans from women’s collectives in India and executing their works in indigo blue, Indian artist SHELLY JYOTI and US artist LAURA KINA’S new works draw upon India’s history, narratives of immigration and transnational economic interchanges.

Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina decided to collaborate in 2008-2009, considering their mutual interest in textile history, pattern & decoration. They began by thinking about the intersections of their own ethnic and national positions in relation to fabrics. For this exhibition in particular, Shelly Jyoti’s Indigo Narratives utilize traditional embroidery and embellishments along with heritage symbols belonging to traveling ethnic communities who settled in coastal Gujarat while Laura Kina’s Devon Avenue Sampler series focuses on a contemporary Desi/Jewish community in Chicago, IL.

To view their works visit:
www.laurakina.com
www.shellyjyoti.com

Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
Preview Red Earth Gallery Baroda, Gujarat
December 15-16, 2009
Reception: December 15, 2009 5:30-8:00 pm, artists will be present
Red Earth Art Galleries Pvt. Ltd.
ABS Towers, Old Padra Road Vadodara, India 390007
Tel: 91 265 3201526
www.redearthgalleries.com

Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
India Habitat Centre New Delhi
December 22-28, 2009
Opening Reception: December 23, 2009, 5:30-9:00 pm, artists will be present
Open Palm Court Gallery
India Habitat Centre Lodhi Road
New Delhi, India 110003
http://www.indiahabitat.org/

Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
Nehru Art Centre
January 12-18, 2010
Opening Reception: 12 January, 5:30-8:00 pm, Shelly Jyoti will be present
Dr. Annie Besant Road Worli, Mumbai, India 400018
Tel: 91 22 2496 4676-80
Fax: 91 22 2497 3827
http://www.nehru-centre.org/artgallery.html

Forum for Contemporary Theory
Laura Kina Artist Lecture - “Diaspora on Devon Ave: Stitching South Asian/Jewish Intersections”
Shelly Jyoti Artist Lecture - “The Politics of Indigo: Revisting India’s Torrid Colonial past”
December 31, 2009 4:00 pm
Centre for Contemporary Theory and General Semantics
C-304 Siddhi Vinayak Complex
Framji Road, Baroda-390 007
Gujarat, India
Tel (0265) 2338067
http://fctworld.org/