ARTIST
Suchitra Mattai
Los Angeles-based artist Suchitra Mattai explores themes of dream making and intergenerational storytelling in her new, site-specific tapestry A Collective Horizon. As with all her work, Mattai handcrafts the legacy of her own family’s immigration journey from the Caribbean and traverses the history of indentured labor in Guyana.
When you look at A Collective Horizon you may first notice bold cool colors, popping out in bursts against the warm pinks, oranges, and reds. You may see an expansive ocean, with islands of lime, kelly and teal greens. Looking closer, the soft glimmering patterns begin to emerge as lush land masses and islands floating in a vast sea. The sun sets off in the west, mapping the cardinal directions of the Hall of Dreams. Her abstracted landscape is both an imagining of a place in the future, as well as a remembrance of journeys past.
Her story, like many immigration stories in the United States, remind us of our shared connections through common threads. The tapestry is hand woven from Indian saris that have been collected from the wider community, including people who know the artist personally.
In using recycled garments and her unique process of weaving, she binds these stories together; these fibers that were once worn close to the body now act as vessels to carry their wearer’s stories of the journey to seek greater joy, love and happiness.
A Collective Horizon invites us to consider a collective act of dreaming, to consider what other hopeful horizons we can seek as a community.
