Two of my hobbies are drawing or painting portraits and collecting unique postcards to send to my friends. I knew I wanted to design a series of postcards, specifically the kind you may find in a gift shop at an art museum since that is where I find mine most of the time. I began researching different museum collections for a way to rework their pieces into my own. That is when I learned that out of 23,000+ works in the National Portrait Gallery, only 35 are of Indians, 5 of which are women. However, Indians are the second largest immigrant group in the United States and have made countless contributions to America’s progress and the world’s. I aimed to reflect Indian and Indian Americans' diverse culture and achievements using my postcards as a medium through which Indian stories, art and culture can be shared by everyone.
Exhibition:
I had the opportunity to showcase my work at Reconnecting, an exhibition held at SOMArts in San Francisco. To display my work, I invited viewers to interact with the postcards as they might find them in real life, like in a gift shop, by putting them on a postcard stand. I included display text about each of the subjects of the postcards for readability. Viewers were also encouraged to write their own postcard to a friend or send it to the National Portrait Gallery voicing support for more Indian representation. They have also been sold at Festival of India, hosted by Howard County's Indian Cultural Association and at the Frederick Arts Council's Winter Artist Market.
