Paper, ink, porcelain

2023

Works in this space:

Did you open the door, or did you find it open for you?

Paper pulp

Burning books, making ghosts

Paper porcelain

A trip to the caves

Inkjet monotypes

The works in the studio embody certain gestures of transformation, both within Goody’s family and larger community, towards a sense of humanity, dignity, and self-respect.

These gestures – in the form of an installation, ceramic pieces, and images – are rooted in historical events led by Dr. Ambedkar such as the burning of the laws of Manu in 1927, leaving Hinduism through mass conversion to Buddhism in 1956, and the slow but steady rise of literacy and education over the twentieth century.

Paper is present in all of the works. Goody have long been fascinated by paper’s role as a carrier of the written word, its deep ties to caste, religion and power, as well as the possibility of it taking various forms due to its materiality, strength, and fragility.

Pulp from unknown books and newspapers is smeared across the floor and wall to make a stupa. Paper holds the ink of leaking images of my family and community on their visit to ancient Buddhist caves. The sheets of porcelain also once contained paper (specifically the laws of Manu), but on firing, the paper was burnt off, leaving behind an airy and light, but hard, surface. A new page, a blank slate.

Ceramics, paper pulp, inkjet monotypes, text

2022

Galleryske, New Delhi, India

In March 1927, a 35 year old Babasaheb Ambedkar marched with over 10,000 people down the steps of Chavdar (‘tasty’ in Marathi) tank in the town of Mahad, Maharashtra, bent down, dipped his hands into the water, and took a drink. Many public spaces such as water bodies like the Chavdar tank and roads were out of bounds for Dalit people for generations – our touch, even our shadow, considered impure. This act, then, of quenching one’s thirst from the water of Chavdar, was not only a fight for the basic human right to drink water, but more importantly, it laid the foundations for a casteless society.

The Mahad Satyagraha is perhaps the most significant event in Dalit history. At the time, it was never photographed by regional or national media, but ripples were felt across the country. Almost a century later, this site, embedded in social and political struggle, is an important place of pilgrimage, and with growing access to phones and cameras, we now choose how we wish to celebrate and memorialise the Satyagraha with our own images.

‘Is the water chavdar?’ is a personal homage to the undocumented 10,000 who journeyed for days through hostile towns and villages to reach Chavdar, and the visitors who make records of the site today. This body of work brings together ceramics, printmaking, paper pulp, and adapted recipes developed over the last three years as evidence of this powerful moment of transformation – for those who joined Babahaheb in the march, and for the millions of us who have come after.

glazed ceramics, clay slip, paper porcelain, paper pulp, text

2022

Deeksha is a reflection on both the private and socio-political impact of conversion. It is a celebration of 14th October, Dhammachkra Pravartan Diwas, when Dr. Ambedkar, along with hundreds of thousands of people, converted to Buddhism in 1956. It is also an introspection of my own private and familial relationship to Buddhist practice.

The body of work includes

Photographs fired into thin porcelain paper clay, photographs that I took in 2017 during our annual pilgrimage in Nagpur to Deekshabhoomi.

22 vows painted on the wall with clay slip, extracted and gathered together from various Dalit memoirs I’ve been reading, inspired by the 22 vows that Dr. Ambedkar took when he converted to Buddhism.

A toran or sacred gateway more than three metres long, consisting of hundreds of ceramic objects resembling food and flowers.

Paper pulp made from the Manusmriti text, spread on the floor.

Eat with Great Delight

2018

Clark House Initiative, Mumbai, 2018

Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, 2019

Breda Photo, Breda, 2022

Jogja Fotografis Festival, Yogyakarta, 2023

There are only a few Dalit cookbooks in active circulation. However, the works produced by the Dalit literary movement contain many vivid and complex descriptions of food. These descriptions deal with hunger, eating, cooking, joy, and trauma, all of which serve to call attention to Dalit communities’ everyday struggle and resistance under the caste system. Since 2017 I have been collecting extracts of Dalit literature that relate to food, and compiling them into books of recipes.  Creating a cookbook which emphasizes the foodways of Dalit communities, to whom access to both food and literacy has been sparse, is an attempt to contest what Sharmila Rege has described as the “‘official forgetting’ of histories of caste oppression, struggles, and resistance”.   

I was born and raised in Pune in a half-Dalit, half-English family. Since the 1980s we have had the luxury of a camera, and as a result we’ve had the opportunity to document our personal histories. While conducting my research into Dalit food culture, I became aware of the lack of positive imagery associated with Dalit communities in public circulation. It is of course immensely important to extensively document the oppression of the caste system and the deplorable conditions that many Dalit people are forced to survive under. But I think there is something significant – and humanising – in disseminating positive depictions of Dalit people too. With this in mind, I turned to photographs of my own family, and the memories captured on camera – most of which revolve around the sharing of food.     

The title of this body of work, ‘Eat with great delight’, is also the name of a recipe I created from Dalit writer Omprakash Valmiki’s autobiography, ’Joothan’ (2003). In the book Valmiki captures seemingly contradictory emotions of shame, hunger, satiation, and celebration that can surround the Dalit experience, in this case in relation to ‘joothan’, the practice of gathering leftovers from upper caste wedding feasts.

Taken between 1984 and 2004 on point-and-shoot film cameras, the images displayed range from my mother drinking Maaza at her wedding reception, my aunt serving paper plates of Budhani wafers and cake to guests at a birthday, my brother learning how to use a knife and fork, sharing a meal with family, to spending time in the kitchen. Mostly they were shot by my mother, Vishakha, and my father, Lokamitra.    

2016

The grounds of Piramal Vaikunth are splattered with the remnants of a bustling chemical factory that once employed thousands.

2015

New and used footwear, net

Khoj Residency, TIFA Working Studios, Pune