Artist Lakshmi Madhavan's work at Lokame Tharavadu is a metaphor for her roots

The

Kochi Biennale Foundation

’s exhibition titled

Lokame Tharavadu

, an ongoing three-month exhibition across various venues in

Alappuzha

, is a coming together of more than a Malayali sensibility. It shows the local, national and international influences that Kerala’s artists have undergone and were able to imbue into their works.

Lakshmi Madhavan

’s

Hanging by a Thread

is, at a glance, very rooted in the local ethos. The work consists of six panels of kasavu mundu woven at Balaramapuram in Thiruvananthapuram. “My grandmother, who was widowed when she was quite young and with whom I used to spend my summer vacations when I was a child, was the influence behind the work. Actually, it was much later that I had realised the influence she had on me, through the sense of identity that she gave me and that I could pass on to my own son,” says Lakshmi.

The Mumbai-based artist says that in these difficult times, when people are forced to stay at home, she contemplated on what home meant to her and it was the feeling of warmth that the memories of her grandmother, dressed in the Kerala two-piece veshti, that were foremost in her mind. Lakshmi has woven the kasavu mundu with Malayalam and English text, which consists of conversations she’s had with her grandmother and looks at culture, language, gender and social norms.

“Hanging by a Thread is a metaphor for the times that we live in, but for me personally is also a metaphor for what I pass on to the next generation… my roots, culture and mother tongue. These are questions I’ve always asked in my works and there is a continued search for answers,” she says.

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