Simranpreet Anand is an artist, curator, and cultural worker creating and working on the unceded territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie, and Semiahmoo peoples (Surrey). She holds a BFA Honours in Visual Arts along with a second major in Psychology from the University of British Columbia.
Simranpreet has been stitching a worn antique Phulkari that was cut into pillowcases and gifted by a family member. The intervention takes place with white silk thread that has dual connotations of mourning and the chand bagh (moon garden) Phulkari that would be gifted matrilineally on auspicious occasions. She will be continuing to embroider this work throughout the run of AGGV's Adorned exhibition:
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This work engages discourse around culturally specific objects and how they are classified as fine art or craft objects in Western art spaces based on opaque and often arbitrary criteria. Phulkari, a rural Punjabi women’s cotton and silk textile, woven and embroidered by hand, was deemed fine art by British colonizers in India and found its way into art spaces and museums. The north Indian Dhurrie, a naturally dyed, flat-woven rug, does not receive the same recognition. Simranpreet approaches objects like these in her art practice for their cultural significance and significations as much as for their technical intricacies and embedded histories of feminine labour. Each so-called craft practice is a medium that carries its own intimacies and types of embodied knowledge. Her work questions these dichotomies of art and craft, drawing from the histories of Punjabi womxn’s practices, including Phulkari, Dhurrie, Boliyaan (oral folk traditions), and Giddha (folk dance traditions).
Her practice is informed by familial and community histories, often engaging materials and concepts drawn from Punjab and the Punjabi diaspora -- peoples whose narratives have been disrupted by colonialism and forced migration. The reclamation of cultural practice in her work confronts colonial theft, cultural propaganda, and forces of global capitalism.
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The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is located on the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən speaking peoples, today known as the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations. We extend our gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to live and work on this territory.
Videography and editing by Marina DiMaio.
