Opening Celebration: Textiles As Monument
IN PERSON
Come celebrate the opening of Textiles as Monument, an exhibition featuring three contemporary artists—Suchitra Mattai, Jagdeep Raina, and Swapnaa Tamhane—who activate textiles as a powerful medium of memory, storytelling, and historical reimagining. Through their new commissions and recent works, the show explores how fabric can function as a “counter-monument,” challenging traditional forms of commemoration while centering people who have been excluded or rendered invisible by dominant narratives. Drawing on materials rooted in everyday and intimate contexts, the artists reframe monumentality through softness, care, and embodied memory.
The launch of the exhibition will include its preview as well as food, music, and a lively conversation between the artists and the curator of textiles, Syona Puliady. Together, they will discuss fabrics as sensuous and tactile vessels of history shaped by touch, labor, and lived experience. The evening will offer an opportunity to see the works first-hand, connect with the artists and curators, and enjoy a festive atmosphere in community with other art lovers.
While at the museum, be sure to visit Field Notes from Begumpura by Rahee Punyashloka in the Fowler Galleria, which reimagines a casteless, utopian future through vibrant murals and speculative “field notes” from the imagined City with No Sorrows.
First-come, first-served seating for the artists conversation from 6:30-7:30pm.
About the exhibition
What constitutes a monument and who gets memorialized? Three contemporary artists of South Asian descent—Suchitra Mattai, Jagdeep Raina, and Swapnaa Tamhane—transform textiles of their cultural heritage into celebrations of those who have been unrecognized in public displays of historical memory. These artworks question why monuments are made and who is given the power to be honored. The project centers on new commissions by the featured artists made in collaboration with, for, and about the communities that have been rendered invisible by the biases of history-making. The creations function as “counter-monuments,” celebrating and embodying the presence of those who have not received adequate recognition.
Generous support for Textiles as Monument is provided by the Anne and John Summerfield Fund, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Mary Jane Leland Textile Fund. Additional funding is provided by the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, Pasadena Art Alliance, Dr. Charles Knobler and Dr. Carolyn Knobler, Tad Freese and Brook Hartzell, Roberts Projects, Kim and Keith Allen-Niesen, and Connie McCreight. Funding for the publication is provided by the R.L. Shep Endowment.
