anusuya
krishnaswamy

Over the summer of 2022, on one of those hot days when it felt nearly unbearable to be in my home, I found myself instead lounging in the laundry room in the basement of my apartment building, comforted in the coldness of the space. Looking around, all I saw were textiles, some forgotten socks and shirts haphazardly folded into a small basket, and sheets hung languidly in the drying room.

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of the ordinary, in this ordinary emerged from this moment of pause. Thinking about how textiles occupy innocuous positions, all around our everyday lives, I started to pay closer attention to my daily life, and particularly the routines surrounding my everyday textiles in my home.

I see myself as a ‘translator’ in this process, translating the experiences of my home into textiles and traversing across mediums in this process. With each medium and transformation adding to the initial experience and observations, daily life then translates onto textiles that are embedded with the rich storytelling that lies in the everyday. The installation consists of these multiple ‘translations’ - woven jacquard textiles, a diary, sketches and a collage book and reflects on how the space of the home, and my experiences with the textiles that live in it, can make what appears to be mundane and ordinary, into something that is full of life. 

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In my MA thesis I closely studied this intimate relationship we have with our everyday textiles in our home, drawing from my personal experiences, leading to six multipurpose woven fabrics.

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The thesis in its entirety can be found here: https://www.finna.fi/Record/aaltodoc.123456789_123069?sid=4784440358