Kirna Devi, heat transfer print on khaddar fabric, phulkari silk thread embroidery, by Spandita Malik © The artist. Courtesy Sarah Hasted, Brooklyn, New York — *Kirna Devi*, heat transfer print on khaddar fabric, phulkari silk thread embroidery, by Spandita Malik © The artist. Courtesy Sarah Hasted, Brooklyn, New York

Spandita Malik is a New York-based artist from India. She finishes her Master of Fine Arts with a major in photography at Parsons School of Design, The New School in New York in 2019. Malik’s work is concerned with the current socio-political scenario with an emphasis on women’s rights and violence against women.

Jagdeep Kaur & Guldeep Kaur, heat transfer print on khaddar fabric, phulkari silk thread embroidery, by Spandita Malik © The artist. Courtesy Sarah Hasted, Brooklyn, New York — *Jagdeep Kaur & Guldeep Kaur*, heat transfer print on khaddar fabric, phulkari silk thread embroidery, by Spandita Malik © The artist. Courtesy Sarah Hasted, Brooklyn, New York

Interviewed by Yuhe Yao

Did you think your works are more like a journal, documentary or a fictional project? Entering each home, do you have a plan of representing your subjects in prior research or confront the unpredictable aspects of their private life?

I believe my project Nā́rī is a synthesis of documentary and fine art. Growing up in India, I often felt that the photography surrounding India, for a long time, was picturesque images of poverty through the lens of the outsider. This project became a very important part of my understanding of my country, of the women of my country through a decolonized perspective.

I was researching rape culture and wanted to interview women in self-help groups, who were also learning to embroider. I heard about women who were not allowed to come to the self-help centers and therefore worked from home. I did not have a definite plan before entering these personal spaces. This urged me to go meet with the women in their houses.

Even as strangers, there was an ease in opening up and talking about the pain that women sometimes understand without having to say it out loud. When I asked them how it was to be a woman in India, they often answered: “you know how it is”.

Firoza, heat transfer print on khadi, gotta Patti and mirror embroidery, by Spandita Malik © The artist. Courtesy Sarah Hasted, Brooklyn, New York — *Firoza*, heat transfer print on khadi, gotta Patti and mirror embroidery, by Spandita Malik © The artist. Courtesy Sarah Hasted, Brooklyn, New York

I found it fascinating that there’s a coherence of women’s embroideries matching their portraits. Did you guide them towards specific fashion patterns or collaborate on a specific vision to embroider on their portraits? Fabrics are a material that is definitely leaning to females. Does your fashion design background influence you to choose the topic related to fabrics?

After I interviewed the women I met, I guided them for a portrait in the space that they lived in. While photographing them, I understood that any portrait I took, will always be my representation of them. So, I printed the portrait I took, onto the fabric of the region and gave it to them to embroider the portrait in a way that seemed fit to them, without any guidelines. When I take a portrait as a photographer, I have the power to represent the subject through my idea of them. When I ask the women to embroider their portraits, they take some power from me and represent their portrait through their idea of themselves, therefore, sharing the power.

There has always been a sense of legacy being passed among women through this language of embroidery and handcraft, to break the oppressor by simple but significant hand movements captured on the fabric, written in a thread.

Kosar, heat transfer print on khadi, gotta Patti, and zardozi embroidery, by Spandita Malik © The artist. Courtesy Sammlung Klein, Germany, and Sarah Hasted, Brooklyn, New York — *Kosar*, heat transfer print on khadi, gotta Patti, and zardozi embroidery, by Spandita Malik © The artist. Courtesy Sammlung Klein, Germany, and Sarah Hasted, Brooklyn, New York

I’m wondering how you changed your mind on the word “nā́rī” after visiting the private spaces? How long have you been working on this project? You have been interested in women’s issues throughout your career, do you feel frustrated that the issues facing women still exist or you will have a hope that people can hear your voice to have a change in the future?

I had the privilege to be the bearer of the stories these women shared with me, to hear them, to question them, to understand the silences, the pauses, and to have the responsibility to retell, share and pass on the stories.

Nā́rī is a word commonly used in Hindi for a woman. I researched the word, in Sanskrit, nārī means woman, wife, female, or an object regarded as feminine but can also mean sacrifice. I was shocked to learn the meaning, I was also shocked to have understood it at the same time.

At an impressionable age, I heard about brutal gang rape cases on the news very often and the lack of political outrage for women’s rights made this matter less abstract and closer to home. These incidences not only forced me to believe that in India, a woman is less than human but also urged me to shed light on the stories of the women in India.

While misogyny is hardly exclusive to one country or culture, India bears particularly ghastly symptoms of it. As a woman, I feel extremely frustrated about this, I hope that I can share these stories as much as I can. I also believe that as a country, India is in the middle of a huge political and religious confrontation with our inner faults as a society, and I believe that a new world is on its way, we just need to keep at it.