An ongoing series of 9 acrylic paintings with a haiku embroidered into each canvas. This mixed-media project explores the intersectional existence of being a Punjabi woman born and raised in the US. In this way, it is equal parts an exploration of my own personal trauma as well as a social commentary of both Western and Indian society.

I am a survivor of family sexual abuse and mutilation, of which the details I had blocked out with elaborate coping mechanisms for 30+ years of my life. During COVID I had copious time to realize and understand this trauma, how it stored itself in the body, and how my mind helped me remain high-functioning for so many years. Through this process of naming, owning, and healing, I have cut ties with family members who were instrumental in carrying out this abuse. Through this process I have learned self-love and integration of all parts of myself into a whole being. I have learned to embrace and let free my artistic power, and to communicate my experiences with the world through poetry and art.

“Haiga of Resistance: Body” is one of several projects that have emerged through this process of ongoing, nonlinear healing. As a woman of color I face extreme challenges in a society that at many times refuses to accept my own authority and autonomy over my own mind, body, and convictions. These challenges become perceptively more difficult when adding to it, my family childhood experiences and how they carried over into my relationships with my family and friends as an adult. With this project I explore both my existence as a survivor as well as my interpretations and interactions with society as a woman of color; as a necessary part of the latter, I also examine and redefine my relationship with family as a concept in itself. This existence is very much resistance. In this way, the project is part self-expression, self-empowerment, and social commentary and healing.