Shruti Gaonkar

About

I am Shruti Gaonkar. I am an architect, artist and performer from Mumbai India.

My practice is research based and multi disciplinary, exploring themes of post colonial feminism and decoloniality of archives and notions of western art history. Femininity is an entangled phenomenon and I use tenderness as an act of resistance. I use meditative repetitive acts of knitting, sewing and working with found textiles, hand dyeing, and shreds of my mothers saris to create site specific installations, performances, and soft sculptural totems on textures of corporeal vulnerabilities. I am trained in architecture and Indian classical dance form of Kathak. Both these forms have deep rooted colonial influences in contemporary Mumbai which I probe into further in my research. Touching and being touched have a long political history in India. If nothing is sacred and everything is divine I build rituals around story telling and the soft fluid body. Hegemonic oppressive power structures of exploitation and injustices has left voids of systematic erasures in post colonial spaces, archives and histories. Through my practice I am interested in exposing these voids, occupying spaces and eventually dismantling these oppressive structures. I also work as youth worker for young people of local community at White City London with disabilities and special needs conducting after school activities. I share various methods of making to empower young people with ways of expressing and having conversations about their well being, safety and aspirations. With mediums of art workshops, design projects, movement practice and sculptural installations I use my creative practice as a vehicle to reach out build connections, empower and open dialogues within diverse communities.