Exhibition Opening & Workshop
Hi Everyone,
I’ll be showing two bodies of work in an upcoming group exhibition at Center for Book Arts, opening the evening of June 5th and on until August 31st. I will be showing work from Rituals of Recursion and In the Belly of the Beast.
As part of the exhibition programming, I will also be teaching a kolam workshop at Center for Book Arts in August.
More info below:
The Space Between Words brings together Aarati Akkapeddi, Valentina Améstica, Rujuta Rao, Audra Wolowiec and Kyung Eun You, five artists working in the studios at Center for Book Arts, each reimagining what it means to read, to publish, and to engage with the book as an evolving, living form. Across print, code, sound, textile, and performance, these works inhabit the margins, silences, and gestures that traditional forms often overlook.
About the Workshop:
This workshop will take place over two sessions:
Monday, August 18th, 6:00pm—9:00pm ET
Monday, August 25th, 6:00pm—9:00pm ET
Kolams are intricate drawings created using rice flour, traditionally made by women in South India each morning at the thresholds of their homes. More than decoration, kolams are a daily ritual and an auspicious gesture. These designs often start with a matrix of dots, around which looping lines form mathematically complex patterns.
This two-part workshop, taught by Aarati Akkapeddi, begins with a discussion of the history of kolams and an introduction to a system they’ve developed for translating text into kolam patterns, which they apply to create prints using custom 3D-printed “legos”. Participants will engage in hands-on exercises to create their own simple visual translation systems and in the second session, they will learn about the tools that can be used to create custom legos for printmaking. We’ll then use the custom kolam “legos” to hand-print our own designs, so that participants will leave with their own printed kolams!
Sign up here
I hope you can make it to the opening. I’ve been a bit down these days and in need of community!
In gratitude,
Aarati