Jhoomar
This sculptural jhoomar (chandelier) is made from illustrated and screen-printed panels. The imagery comes from chandeliers I saw at the Chowmahalla Palace in Hyderabad. If you’re corny and into Christopher Nolan, you could call it jhoomar-ception. In other words, it’s a chandelier of chandeliers.
When I visit India, I rarely get the chance to travel or sightsee. Much of my physical experience of the country has been limited to people-watching the gullies from my family’s terrace. Visiting Chowmahalla Palace was enchanting and world-building for me. It was one of the first times I was allowed to experience a place in India outside of my immediate family.
Chowmahalla Palace was home to the Nizams of Hyderabad during their reign from 1724 to 1948. Today, the palace is open to visitors and houses artifacts from the Nizam era. This chandelier of chandeliers is a fragment of the India that became part of my own imagined and remembered geography.
The blue panels are made of dyed cotton and screen printing. They're pinched together with jump rings and payal. The structure is made up of a wooden frame covered in silver foil, more jump rings, and ribbons. A LOT of trial and error went into this piece, it was my first time working with many of these materials and processes! Like printing transparencies, dyeing, and screen printing onto fabric, and working in a studio nearby.
