Making Multicultural Visible
In 2022 I applied for a research grant to explore how we can make “multicultural” visible in our cities. Other than people in the streets, bus stops, and names of restaurants, in what other way could we reflect the multicultural nature of our residents so they can see themselves and each other and be excited by the vibrancy of it all?
I did not get the grant but like always, just writing the proposal was exciting. In 2022 I also told Loulou one day how I wanted a studio on Columbia Pike in Arlington, a street I love and feel very comfortable on. Its the diverse people, languages, food, and experiences that remind me of Mumbai, India, where I grew up. After a lunch a Takohachi Japanese Restaurant (LouLou has lived and worked all over the world, including Japan) we stopped at an empty retail location, parked, and cupped out hands on the glass windows to peek in. That’s when we saw the Do Not Trespass sign and ran back to the car. At the end of 2022 I completed my book Columbia Pike Recipes for Recovery, where I interviewed independent ethnic restauranteurs on the Pike, photographed them and not the food, and asked them to share a recipe. It was my second recipe book project. The first was in 2016.
My Columbia Pike Recipes for You 2016, a Community Book Art project at the Columbia Pike Blues Festival, Columbia Pike, Arlington VA. For this project I used country flags, colors from the flags, and recipe names in various languages (all written in English) to make multicultural visible.
So when we were setting up our first exhibits in the new space on Columbia Pike, we looked at the big display window and I had an idea for an artwork collaboration that would make multicultural visible! Loulou loved the idea and said that could always be the theme for whatever art goes on there, something passers-by and people inside can easily see. We wrote down our goals.
GOALS:
Our signature interactive community artwork,
Here, we were visible to the public walking by
We could invite them in, and invite them to participate
They would want to know more, engage more, ask questions
We would discuss “multicultural” and explore how we all can make it visible so we can embrace what it teaches us
So first, we cleaned the window covered in years of grime and neglect. LouLou had ideas and supplies! Genelle volunteered to climb on the ladder and help. Then the vinyl guys came and installed the vinyl signs I had designed. The window was ready for the artist!
The First Artwork: “My Henna, My Pike, Our Cultural Connections,” 2023
I shared my idea with artist and educator Sharmila Karamchandani who is also a henna artist, and a dear friend, and so the first artwork was inspired by our Community Coloring done at the Community PAUSE from the exhibit We PAUSED! Unbound “Arms Stretched Towards the Clouds.” (2023) At the end of social distancing, we encouraged people to get close to each other again, and had them stand around high top tables, and color together artworks created by our artists. As the music changed they switched tables so everybody got to color each artwork. Then those were added to the exhibit.
Here is the text from the catalog for our opening exhibits at the new location:
Sharmila Karamchandani and Sushmita Mazumdar
“My Henna, My Pike, Our Cultural Connections,” 2023
Interactive henna artwork, glass markers on window
“After a long time of thinking how we can make ‘multicultural’ visible on my dear Columbia Pike, I was excited to get a chance to try out the idea! So I invited Sharmila Karamchandani a henna artist, to collaborate with me. She remembered how thrilled she had been at the Community Coloring at the exhibit We PAUSED! Unbound seeing her black and white henna design print made colorful by the guests. She wanted to do that on a big scale and have many people color it in. And so she drew the artwork “My Henna, My Pike, Our Cultural Connections” a community art project, freehand, on the display window of the new studio.” — Sushmita
Guests at the Studio’s Columbia Pike location’s grand opening and Community PAUSE start to color in the artwork, Oct 2023.
Sharmila drew it all in white chalk marker and on a small table nearby, she had butcher paper and colorful collection of chalk markers for people to test and use. Over the months, people who stopped in to ask “What is this place?” got to color it in, families who came for Family Art PAUSE on Friday evenings colored it in, and guests who attended our various events did that too.
At our November 2023 Community PAUSE: Celebrating Diwali, Sharmila was there doing henna on people’s hands. There were many people attending and soon some kids raised an alarm. When we all looked at them, they pointed out how the glass window had condensation and the chalk colors were dripping! Sharmila was right there to assure everyone that it was okay, as the artwork, like the rangoli being created on the floor using colored sand by 3 Nepali women, just like the henna she was doing on people’s hands, were all temporary. They bring us beauty and joy for a while and then are wiped away or fade away.
But dripping paint didn’t stop anybody. People continued to add to it till the last day, May 28, 2024.
It was emotional thing to wipe out the artwork which so many had helped create over so many months. But we did it. We cried as we wiped the window clean. Art is like that. We are like that.
The Second Artwork: Nature in our Celebrations
It was emotional thing to wipe out the artwork which so many had helped create over so many months. But we did it. But we had many ideas! Still, as the Studio work got busy, people left for summer breaks, and all that, the wall remained blank. As we cleaned and organized the Studio we came across ideas and sketches for artworks in books, on sheets of paper, on the butcher paper that covers tables. We had also done the project “Me, Here at NoVA and Elsewhere” with the students of the AAPI Center at the Northern Virginia Community College. Their books were displayed on our installation frames in the middle of the Studio. We pulled them up to the window so people could take a look.
When the children came in next, for Family Art PAUSE, they said they missed the artwork.
And then one day when I was wondering how to use our latest Handmade Storybook project, Abundance is Bright: Celebrating Goddess Lakshmi and Diwali to create an activity for the participants of AWE (a local weaving program for adults with disabilities) came in for their monthly Art PAUSE, LouLou suggested I have them draw the lotus, the alpona, etc used in the book. Which led me to think about how cool it was that as we were at the NMAA celebrating diwali with the public through our bookmaking activity, so many others were celebrating Dia De los Metros, the Mexican Day of the Dead too. This year they were both on the same day and one day before it was Halloween. And that gave me an idea!
I printed the images of our lotus flower representing Lakshmi and a marigold representing the Mexican tradition. I explained to the Weavers the idea of how we use motifs from nature to commemorate our traditions all over the world. I showed them Amar Shekdar’s painting of Lakshmi sitting on the lotus and holding the flowers in her back hands. I described the lotus to the group as many had not seen one. They also made note of the oranges, yellow, and red colors in the marigolds I had brought in from my garden. They smelled them too.
Then I taped the images alternatingly to the window from outside. The Weavers used pink chalk markers to trace out the lotus and multiple colors for the marigolds. Later, when one woman was coloring in I noticed her sweater was green, the color of holly leaves. I asked the group what occasions were coming up and after thanksgiving they said Christmas. I shared about holly and asked a staff who was an artist to make a quick drawing. I photocopied it and taped holly in between the lotus and marigold. They colored them green and the berries red. When I asked the group if they connected with any of this one person said her dad was Mexican. When I asked if there were other traditions which use nature motifs a staff who is from Ghana told us about hosanna, the palm leaf they take to church during Easter. I made a drawing in my sketchbook for spring time.
The next day the second group came in. I had bought new markers. We made a second row of lotus, marigold, and holly. Passers by smiled and waved at the Weavers working on their artworks and they waved back. One Weaver said poinsettias also come during the winter and cherry blossoms also came in the spring and I added them to my sketchbook. A staff member pointed out that one Weaver needed to sit and work and suggested I tape the designs lower on the window for her.
Then we did a Dance PAUSE because one of the weavers told me she had started Zumba classes. We often mix in movement as working with the hands and with focus for too long gets hard. So I played a newly downloaded Puerto Rican album and we danced. When they left, those who wanted to be photographed stood on the sidewalk with the flowers behind them and we took silly photos. The groups that come in are multicultural themselves so it was a perfect fit!
What’s in a Name? A lot!
As we discussed the window and what we put in there, we decided to call it our Window to Multicultural. But upon discussion with the community, that would change and we would come up with a new name. Stay tuned…