wherever you are is called Here
wherever you are is called Here (non-flags/counter-flags/anti-flags)
2019
Screen print and weaving on rice bags
Twelve non-flags (14 x 25 in. each)
This project reimagines the symbolism of flags and its relationship to place and home for immigrant, displaced, and exiled communities. These are counter-flags created from rice bags, woven maps, photos, and stories of home from my grandmother. The use of rice bags is a nod to my familial history of rice framing. As we sewed the rice bags, I recorded my grandmother’s stories of forced migration from India to Pakistan during the 1947 Partition and later to the U.S. The audio is played in the gallery along with the installation. Woven into the rice bags are maps and images of places encountered and remembered, real and imagined: from state lines and zip codes in the U.S. to the border of India and Pakistan. Interwoven and layered, these maps, places, and borders become faded and pixelated.
Photos by Adam Bencomo
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