Nā́rī: Threads of Identity – Spandita Malik

I had the privilege to be the bearer of the stories these women shared with me, to hear them, to question them, to understand the silences, the pauses, and to have the responsibility to retell, share, and pass on these stories. There was a conscious effort in stepping away from the colonized eye in documentary photography of India, and photographing these women in the rooms they live in. I printed the portrait I took, onto the fabric of the region and asked them to embroider the portrait in a way that seemed fit to them, without any guidelines, giving them the agency to have authority over their own portrayal.