the temple she wore

Shiloh Shiv Suleiman is the founder-director of Fearless Collective, where she helps over 400 artists protest gender violence through their work. But last week, the 32-year-old outspoken Indian contemporary artist made news for his installation, Temple, displayed at Boundless Space, a charity auction event by Sotheby’s and the Burning Man Project. Presented at an estimate of $30,000-$50,000 and eventually sold for $56,700, Temple There is a wearable installation and a ‘ritual display’. Suleiman says it not only retrieves his connection to his family history but also views the female body as a site of devotion.

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With an Instagram followers of around 54,000, the artist has been successful with various mediums of expression. At the age of 16, she featured stories from her life in thick red hand-tied magazines. “I found that I could tell other stories as well, which led me to illustrating books for children, 10 published books by the time I was 18, and one Ted by the time I was 21. had seen it a million times,” she says. Temple, in brass with semi-precious stones, has its origins in a small temple in Kannur, Kerala. Suleiman shares how her father’s Nambiar family was the custodian of this temple and “dedicated to Sri Oorpazhachi Kavu, the temple of the Mother Goddess and her ancient grove of herbs”. She talks about meeting her father at that temple back in December 2019, before making this work during the second wave of the pandemic.

Edited excerpts from an interview:

You have introduced this art during the ‘Mausam of the Goddess’.

Actually, it is the season of the goddess. While in Indian culture, goddess is worshiped outside of us, rarely do we as Indian women hold the same reverence and purity that is given to temples or idols inside temples. so for me, Temple In fact inside us and in every woman was the salvation of the Goddess. The piece is inspired by dancers in Kerala who channel the Mother Goddess. But only men are allowed to exhibit and channelize these energies. In many Indian traditions, it is believed that women are not powerful enough to hold the divine woman within themselves. So this excerpt is really challenging some of those assumptions, especially during Navratri, because we are counting down every night and making these havans to the Goddess as a reminder that the Goddess is within all of us. is present.

Temple You have ties with your family on both sides, right?

It was made in my studio at Hawa Mahal in Jaipur. I worked with artisans from the blacksmith community. My grandfather Haji Suleman is from the blacksmith community and was a metal worker, so it is a very interesting amalgamation of both sides of my family. The concept of the piece started in India during the second wave which, as we all know, was terrifying. And in that dark and dark time, I found myself creating this piece almost as a reminder of a soft light and power. I went to Rajasthan, where for three months I worked to make a 40 kg (brass) piece around my body. I wanted it to exist as something that could be worn on my body, but could also be an altar and a temple in its own way.

Tell us about that moment in Kannur, a homecoming, when you ‘found’ your father and yourself.

In a moment of tremendous uncertainty and fear in our lives, when my father moved to China without notice, my mother and I started painting. Nilofer Suleiman found himself responsible for two children and began teaching art. At the age of 14, I used to carry her basket of crayons, and help her. During the day he did two things to sustain us, at night we painted. At the age of 16, I began to tell my own story… I took my Muslim mother’s maiden name (Sulaiman) and the rest is the history of our art. But while that story is often told, it is just one part of my story, and a part of my lineage. Twelve years after he left, after many years of self-work, I decided to look for my estranged father in our ancestral village in Kerala, where he had reluctantly returned from China for lack of choice. That afternoon in December 2019, I found him, but I found myself too. As we stepped beyond the threshold into the temple’s ancient embrace, I felt like I had found my way back to my bone and lineage.

At a time when women have been ignored for so long… these altars are a reminder of our own sanctity.

Do you think the winning bidder will honor the traditions of devotion… “beloved, adorned, accustomed and inherited” as you mentioned on Instagram?

I really hope that the person who is taking my temple home will honor it as a living thing, because I know I have. The piece was blessed in a temple in Rajasthan, and then blessed again in New York, when 25 South Asian women [were part of a] Beautiful temple procession inside the auction house, led by my friend and musician Monica Dogra. They walked into Sotheby’s with incense and ritual bowls dripping red. I am confident that anyone who has purchased this piece will continue to treat it the same way.

Can we expect other wearable temples?

We are celebrating nine different manifestations of woman. Be in his blissful state, in his angry state, in his angry state, in his state of being. His mother ideal. And yet women are being humiliated so much all over the world. But I believe a revolutionary is emerging right now, a revolutionary reformation of that shape of that feminine power inside our bodies. So will many, many beautiful temples and changing friends that I will make over the next few years. And I believe that our future will be women.

How can we encourage greater representation of Indian art in international forums?

For me, it was interesting that a temple inside an auction house was not treated as a dead object… I think when we talk about representing Indian art in international forums, it is Indian There is also a revamp of the art. And it doesn’t have to be something that is placed inside a frame or inside a box. It could be something that is very close to us. It is something that is used, that is worshipped.