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 as always, just writing the proposal was exciting. One day in 2022, I also told LouLou how I wanted a studio on Columbia Pike in Arlington, because it’s a street I love and feel very comfortable on. It’s the diverse people, languages, food, and experiences that remind me of Mumbai, India, where I grew up. After lunch at Takohachi Japanese Restaurant (LouLou has lived and worked all over the world, including Japan), we were so excited and then noticed an empty retail storefront on the Pike. We stopped, parked, and cupped our hands on the glass windows to peek inside. That’s when we saw the No Trespassing sign and ran back to the car.
At the end of 2022, I completed my book Columbia Pike Recipes for Recovery, in which I interviewed independent ethnic restaurateurs 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.
The “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.
And then we got a space on Columbia Pike! You can read all about that story here. When we were setting up our first exhibits in the new Studio PAUSE space, we looked at the big display window and then I had an idea for an artwork collaboration that would make multicultural visible! LouLou loved the idea and said that it could always be the theme for whatever art goes on there, something that passers-by and people inside can easily see. We wrote down our goals.
GOALS for our signature interactive community artwork:
It’s visible to the public walking by;
We could invite them in, and invite them to participate;
They would want to know more, engage more, and ask questions;
We would discuss “multicultural” and explore how we all can make it visible, so we can embrace what it teaches us
First, we had to clean the big window, which was 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 for the first artwork with artist and educator Sharmila Karamchandani, who is also a henna artist and a dear friend. It was inspired by our community coloring activity, which was part of the Community PAUSE we held for 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 the 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 over the course of a week. It was amazing! Then, on a small table nearby, she had put out a colorful collection of chalk markers and butcher paper 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 designs on the back of people’s hands. There were many people attending, and it was a fantastic time. Soon, some kids were pointing out what was happening on the window. When we all looked, we saw how condensation had formed on the glass window, and the chalk colors were dripping! Sharmila was right there to assure everyone that it was okay. The art on the window, like the rangoli being created on the floor (made by three Nepali women using colored sand), and just like the henna designs she was creating on people’s hands, it was 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 an 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
But we had many ideas! Still, as the Studio work got busy and people left for summer break, 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, and 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 (Arlington Weaves, Etc., 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 Día de Muertos, 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 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, yellows, and reds in the marigolds I had brought in from my garden. They smelled them too.
Then I taped the images alternately 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 leaves and asked a staff who was an artist to make a quick drawing. I photocopied it and taped her drawing 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 springtime.
The next day, the second group came in. I had bought new markers. We made a second row of lotus, marigold, and holly. Passersby smiled and waved at the Weavers working on their artworks, and they waved back. One Weaver said poinsettias also bloom during the winter, and cherry blossoms appear in the spring, so 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. 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 created the new art projects for the window with artist LouLou Marino and Sharmila (again) we discussed the window and what we put in there, and we found the name Making Multicultural Visible was not enough. We would come up with a new name, one that we all agreed upon. Stay tuned…