Color Falls Down

Artist Statement

At age 18, a couple of years after the death of my parents, I moved from India to the United States with all my belongings in one suitcase. My photographs, which are rooted in my fascination with my parents, visually express the notion of transience and split cultural identity caused by the act of migration. In Color Falls Down these issues are seen through the lens of my own personal history and cultural identity. I re-contextualize and alter my family snapshots and personal artifacts to reveal the correlations between generations, cultures and memory.

Color Falls Down is a conversation with my ancestors and also an effort to reconcile the cultural dualities that have helped form my hybrid identity. This conversation began with the domestic objects and family photographs that I carried with me in my suitcase and which have been my companions ever since. My self-portrait is the constant that links my past with my present. In this work I am neither Indian nor American, but the link that chains generations together.