In Jāḷī—Meshes of Resistance, 9 embroidered textiles bear pictures of ladies who gaze out on the viewer and each other. Particulars sing and delight: folded fingers resting on a patchwork of flowers, a dupatta threaded with cyan and gold, droplet-sized mirrors reflecting mild. It’s by way of these lovingly sewn stitches that an unassuming white-walled room at Robert Mann Gallery turns into an intimate residence for an uncommon present.
New York-based artist Spandita Malik spent two years interviewing and photographing the ladies who seem within the exhibition, all survivors of home violence whom she met by way of nonprofits in North India. Every was photographed in her own residence — the identical house the place abuse persists and ladies’s labor is commonly devalued — however decided her personal pose and gaze in a reclamation of company.
Spandita Malik, “Zayada Bhegam” (2025), distinctive photographic switch print on khadi material, embroidery
After transferring the {photograph} onto a regionally sourced khadi textile, Malik returned the piece to the sitter, inviting her to embroider her picture nonetheless she happy and compensating her for her work. Some sewed over their faces or lower them out fully, whereas others topped themselves in a maze of working stitches or adorned their bedspread with a discipline of purple thread. Every artist additionally left traces of her hand within the type of faint fold strains and ink marks, tender residues of course of and human contact. By the tip of the exhibition, I remained satisfied that the gallery ought to have achieved extra to emphasise that Jāḷī is a bunch present, moderately than a solo one.
Towards the grain of a rustic and world that punishes and denies dignity to survivors, Malik’s present is greater than a mere embellishment or reclamation. Her invitation made manner for a collective transformation, one wherein every artist restitches the material of home house within the picture of her inside world.
I traced this thread of resistance in three strategies, whose stitches linger in my thoughts’s eye. I maintain enthusiastic about the latticed home windows in “Jamila Bhegam” (2025), for one. Malik photographed Bhegam sitting on a plastic chair in an open-air house. She, in flip, prolonged the lattice sample from the window into the backdrop, embroidering a posh net with herself entrance and heart — gaze direct and fingers clasped in self-assurance. Jāḷī, which refers to each latticed screens discovered on home windows throughout South Asia and conventional mesh stitches, provides the present its identify.
Spandita Malik, “Jamila Bhegam” (2025), distinctive photographic switch print on khadi material, zardozi
Subsequent, Malik photographed “Farhana” (2023) in a dim hallway with inexperienced mild filtering by way of a window above. Farhana then locations herself on the heart of a shimmering golden mesh of basic motifs utilizing metallic gota patti embroidery, usually reserved for formalwear. She tugs on the thread of South Asian textile artwork, of which girls have been on the forefront, and asserts herself worthy of finery in her on a regular basis life.
And in “Heena” (2025), a lady stands beside pots and pans close to a brick wall. At her toes blooms a mattress of flowers with winking mirrors at their heart, a shisha embroidery approach. But when we search for her face, we as an alternative discover our personal, mirrored again to us in one other mirror bordered with thread. Simply as Malik invited her, Heena invitations me — and also you — to seek out glints of ourselves in these portraits of different individuals.
Element of Spandita Malik, “Farhana” (2023), photographic switch print on khadi material, zardozi and gota-patti embroidery and beadwork
Spandita Malik, “Heena” (2025), distinctive photographic switch print on khadi material, zardozi
Jāḷī—Meshes of Resistance continues at Robert Mann Gallery (508 West twenty sixth Road, Suite 9F, Chelsea, Manhattan) by appointment solely by way of June 28. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
