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In these brightly hued and hand-embroidered panels, visitors read the concerns, hopes, and dreams of the artist as she considered the questions facing humanity today. Bangladeshi artist Yasmin Jahan Nupur has worked with jamdani, a centuries-old and disappearing fine weaving technique, which she uses to express individual and collective memories across time and space. In this work, whose draping forms are inspired by the memory of freshly-dyed fabric drying in the sun, the artist took a new approach to working with the jamdani by adding hand-embroidered text, bringing a traditional art form to bear on the contemporary themes addressed in the work.

The works are made up of summer colors, featuring warm shades of pink and a cool, light blue. Pink, considered a feminine color in many cultures, has also become a color of protest. The blue might represent the sky and the sea, associated with open space and freedom. Nupur interjected texts across the weave: What will happen if we break our chronological interpretation of history? Who says resistance is futile? I dreamed about walking in the sky...
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Meet the Artist
YASMIN JAHAN NUPUR
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Yasmin Jahan Nupur is a visual and performance artist whose work is influenced by the ecological and community driven aspects of life. Depicting human relationships from various points of view, her work explores class distinctions and the social discrepancies people face, particularly women and immigrants from South Asia, in an effort to increase understanding between people of different backgrounds. Her recent work has engaged deeply with architecture and textile, with a particular focus on Jamdani (a form of hand-woven textile), creating soft sculpture exploring the physical and social constructs affecting her psyche. Yasmin is a member of Britto Arts Trust in Bangladesh, and in 2015 was invited to attend a performance residency at the Delfina Foundation in London. Her work has been featured in exhibitions internationally, including: Cosmopolis #1.5: Enlarged Intelligence, Mao Jihong Arts Foundation in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou (2018-1019); Beyond Borders, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2017-2018); the Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa (2016); the Dhaka Art Summit (2012, 2014, 2016, 2018); the Bangladesh Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale (2013); and the Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka (2013, 2008), where she received the Honourable Mention Award for her inclusion in both editions; and Frieze London 2019. Her recent body of work has been shown at Exhibit320 gallery in Delhi in 2018 in an exhibition titled “Patterns of a Tactile Score.”
Partners and Sponsors
I Dreamed About Walking in the Sky was commissioned by the Lucas Artists Program at Montalvo Arts Center and was made possible through the support of the following program partners, exhibition sponsors, and Friends of the LAP:
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