Although my graduation is finished, and I now proudly carry a Bachelors degree, I am leaving this page as is, till a new exciting venture arrives for me. My graduation has been extremely special, and seeing it unfold will give you a clear picture of my final year.
For my graduation project, I decided to work on what was most familiar to me- my rich Parsi and Indian culture, a subject I’ve researched since my artistic journey began. My explorations took the form of countless videos filmed during my visit to India. I filmed the two rituals that became the focus of my project- Ses, and Diwali. Growing up in a multicultural household, my grandmother always encouraged me to take part in Indian festivals. My mother introduced me to the Parsi community, one that you can only be born into. Ses, a Parsi ritual of celebration, became the focus of my A Level coursework. Back then I documented the community through our food and religion. This time I wanted to focus solely on the ritual, which is practised only within the community. I used this aspect of privacy to create a cookbook, using the food items that are part of the ses, and finding recipes all over India that incorporated these ingredients in my cooking.
During my trip to India I also took videos of my mother documenting her extensive sari collection. Sari is a 5 metre long strip cloth draped around the body worn by women, in India. It is the most commonly worn clothing. Below is a rough sketch of what I expect the finished installation to look like. As the title of this page suggests, it is a project in progress, and I will be updating this page regularly with developments.
My passion for book design has grown over the last few years and I loved using it as a medium for my explorations. My cookbook (still in progress) is a multilayered illustrated and pictorial book. I referred back to the different kinds of papers I used in various other books and chose vellum as the perfect carrier for concealing the ritual of ses.