About the Actant
© Rajyashri Goody
Rajyashri Goody completed her BA in Sociology at Fergusson College in Pune (2011), and an MA in Visual Anthropology at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester, England (2013). Rajyashri's art practice is informed by her Ambedkarite roots. Through writing, ceramics, photography, and sculptural works made with found objects, food items, and paper pulp, she attempts to decode and make visible instances of everyday power and resistance within Dalit communities in India. In July 2018 she had a solo, Eat With Great Delight, at Clark House Initiative, Mumbai. Selected group exhibitions include Look Outside This House at Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa, December 2019; Body Building at Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, September 2019; Working Practices, The Showroom, London, May 2018; and Revelations: Reclaiming South Asian Narratives, Harvard University, Cambridge, April 2018. In December 2018, she was awarded the Emerging Artist Award by India Today. Recent residencies include Art Omi, Ghent, 2019; ISCP, New York, 2018; Khoj International, New Delhi, 2017; Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, 2017; and Asia Culture Centre, Gwangju, 2016.
© Rajyashri Goody
This project involves turning the Manusmriti text into paper pulp, erasing its writing, and opening it up to new forms of interpretation. It is inspired by the Manusmriti Dahan, when Dr. Ambedkar publicly burnt the Manusmriti, an ancient Hindu law book, on 25th December, 1928, as a symbol of rejection of the practice of untouchability within Hinduism. Power and Pulp is an exhibition of drawings, paintings, and sculptures made by 40 artists with paper made from Manusmriti paper pulp. During the exhibition, there will be a continuous performance every day involving the making of paper pulp from the Manusmriti and turning this pulp into round objects resembling laddoos. Artists, academics, and activists dealing with themes of caste, minorities, power, and resistance will be invited to speak in the evenings and hold group discussions at the venue. Simultaneously, these discussion circles would also engage speakers and audience members in the physical act of pulping and making laddoos.
