A performance art series curated by SAWCC
March 1, 2014
Target First Saturdays
SUBLIME performances are from 8 – 10 PM in the Beaux-Arts Court
For this program the museum is free and open to the public from 5 – 11 PMÂ
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, New York
Experience the sublime in its beauty and terror in this engaging and interactive performance art series presented by SAWCC (South Asian Women’s Creative Collective). You can unravel tales inscribed on a 216 foot long sari; seal your fate or fortune by sparring with the Gods, Karma, and Lady Luck; and even get bullied by Lady Liberty. Ordinary text messages and architecture that is worn on the body will also transport you to realms of precious wonder, delight, and pathos.
Curated by Shelly Bahl, Sunita S. Mukhi and Jasmine Wahi.
Performances by Monica Jahan Bose, Ruby Chishti, Anjali Deshmukh, Swati Khurana, Sunita S. Mukhi and Roshani Thakore.
Related links: SUBLIME at the DUMBO Arts Festival, and Photos and Video from SUBLIME
Monica Jahan Bose
Unwrapped
Unwrapped references both Draupadi, the mythological eternal virgin married to five brothers, and Bose’s grandmother, who was married at age seven. Speaking to women’s rights over their bodies and access to education, the performance involves wrapping/unwrapping the artist’s body with a 216-foot sari covered with writing by Bangladeshi women.
Monica Jahan Bose is a Bangladeshi-American artist and activist whose work includes painting, printmaking, performance, and advocacy on women’s issues. She is collaborating with twelve women from Katakhali, Bangladesh on an art and advocacy project, Storytelling with Saris. Katakhali is Bose’s ancestral village, on an island disappearing from climate change.
Ruby Chishti
Sublime Structure
Ruby Chishti stands still in several locations wearing her sculpture with open windows where inside and outside meet and cross. By transforming the sculpture into something wearable, this hand stitched building structure becomes a witness to history, and it also represents a desire to live and assimilate across cultures.
Ruby Chishti was born and raised in Pakistan now lives and work in New York. Her work exudes a universal pathos as it speaks of gender disparities in light of personal experience and traditional belief. Her ability to transform humble materials is consistently visible through her oeuvre, distilling psychologically complex narratives into life-sized representational forms.
Anjali Deshmukh

Random [Fortune] Generator 2: Micro-Fiction Game & Gambling on Thoughts
This project is derived from Lila, a word that describes the universe as a cosmic game, the outcome of ‘divine’ play. Maybe our understanding of this play is an act of passive perception. Maybe it’s a story we tell ourselves. Players can choose to play this gameboard in two ways, selecting to create a work of ‘micro-fiction’ or pick lottery numbers that they or the artist will use to play the Powerball in New York City.
Anjali Deshmukh makes visual systems and processes that generate subjective, creative, or random outcomes coded with specific metaphors. Sometimes the outcomes are paintings or images, sometimes they are stories, and sometimes they are lottery numbers.
Swati Khurana
Texting Scrolls
With a red cigarette girl style tray, Swati Khurana walks around and elevates passersby’s SMS messages from the banal to the sublime. By transcribing the text onto vellum and tying the scroll with a sacred red thread, an ephemeral message is transformed into a precious object.
Swati Khurana was born in India and raised in New York where she currently lives and works. Her videos, collages, drawings, sculptures, and installations mine personal narratives and explore immigrant issues with a focus on gender, popular culture, and the seductive promises made by rituals.
Sunita S. Mukhi
Shrimati Liberty Is An Awesome American!
Are you as awesome an American as the resplendent Shrimati Liberty? Can you rightfully take your place here in the land of the free and home of the brave? Be prepared to answer her pointed questions. Or face the consequences. As a recent convert to the US, she is armed and ardent.
Sunita S. Mukhi’s performance works are on women’s power and the redemptive quality of the arts. As a story-teller, she has composed, refurbished, and performed tales from Asia for young audiences. In the summer of 2012, she played the lead in Pan Asian Repertory’s production of Rangoon to rave reviews.
Roshani Thakore
KARMALYMPICÂ CHALLENGE
Reach the ultimate sublime state in 15 minutes or less with the KARMALYMPIC CHALLENGE! Participants compete with an actual sacred god in a series of three absurd physical challenges for a chance to win a free ticket to eternity. Winners take ALL!
Roshani Thakore received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts. In an attempt to examine the concept of identity in the global twenty-first century, her collages, sculptures, and interactive installations explore aspects of movement, time, and space in relation to Hindu philosophy and the immigrant experience in America.