ABSTRACT

“Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Migration,” the title of both my thesis work and thesis book, calls attention to displacement and forced migration as a disruption in the continuity of place, relationships, identity, memory, and time. Through a collection of textiles, I try to capture the psychological effects of forced migration and communicate the impact of political violence on cultural identity and coexistence. 

With emphasis on materiality, form, texture and color I explore the relationship of architecture's power to shape the memory of home. How it changes through passage of time for a migrant family? How does the feeling of security get transformed into fragility? I position myself within the context of how the current Indian government is attempting to rewrite the nation’s history and distort India’s pluralistic story. I tell a personal narrative of displacement in harrowing tales of loss, alienation, and the search for and reaffirmation of identity, home, and belongingness in a beleaguered nation that seems to have lost its way.