அடையாளம்

form

This liminal space explores the plurality of Tamil identity, the contradictions, the poetics and the politics.  It negotiates what we bring forward through the threshold, what we leave behind. It seeks right to self-determine. How do I define my postcolonial Tamil identity? She takes multiple forms. They take multiple shapes.

In the reading room, works of children and community members of Nottingham Tamil community are presented against the blue wall. These works are produced with support by Nottingham Tamil Kuzhumam. The artworks are produced as an exploration of their diasporic Tamil identity. From traditional Indian dance form to tennis, from social media to saree, these works expand what it is to be a Tamil-British person through collage-making. Why are these artworks here?

Is it here because I am. Is it here because the Thanjavur bronzes are here, Tipu’s tiger is here? Is it here because the Kohinoor is here? Is it here to claim? To stay, to be? These footwear, community artworks work as an invitation to marginalised communities and Tamil diasporic community into contemporary spaces. As an art-form, kolam is a practice of making-home. Each artwork here is a kolam, making home, adding a new definition of home.

Across the blue wall, on the shelves, you can find a kolam notebook handed down by Raghavi’s grandmother to them. Kolam art-form is an intergenerational practice, handing down embodied practices and care. Could an exhibition do the same?