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Origami Folds
CONFIDENTIAL:
All information contained in this document/email/website as well as in any of the attached documents/links including any creative idea, poem, graphic, artwork, story, screenplay, treatment, synopsis, script or video (“Information”) is strictly confidential in nature, and is proprietary to Varsha Panikar & Star Hopper Studios. You acknowledge that the Information is being shared with you by Varsha Panikar & Star Hopper Studios only for the limited purpose of exploring a possible business opportunity with you and does not, in any manner, grant any rights in the Information in your favour. You, therefore, will not copy, reproduce, amend, modify, republish, upload, post, transmit or distribute or monetise in any way, the Information, in full or in part, without obtaining prior written consent of Varsha Panikar & Star Hopper Studios, nor will you use the Information to your benefit without giving Varsha Panikar & Star Hopper Studios the due acknowledgements, monetarily and otherwise.
'Origami Folds' is an ongoing and evolving exploration that employs dreams, memories, archive and interviews juxtaposed with the curves and folds of human body, and uses it as a medium and metaphor for hopeless fragility and hardened impenetrability, from which emerges the themes of identity, dysphoria, commodification of the body, and denial and loss of autonomy as conditions of globalized society and cultures, through the lens of south-Asian, queer and marginalized bodies; and by allowing these identities that are forever under critical scrutiny, objectification and dehumanizing policing from external and internal perspectives to appear on their own terms, thereby giving them back their agency. Stuck within this stifling framework of zeroes (0) and ones (1), the skin has separated from the body, both physically and metaphorically in the separation between skin and psyche. Skin here, also represents time and wraps us up like cellophane wraps hard candy.
My latest zine, My Body Is A Prison, from the same series is available on Amazon Kindle and has been curated by Zine Club Chicago, New Paltz NYC Sojourner Truth Library and Grrrl Zine Fair. Excerpts from the same series have also appeared in Marketplace Zine - 'Skin' and 'Lines' by Forbidden Verses; the 6th edition of Zine by The Rights Collective and South Asian Sisters Speak (SASS), titled 'Brown Bodies, the 5th edition of Nerve Zine, titled 'Self', and a queer poetry anthology by One Future Collective, titled 'Raza'.
Currently seeking funds and collaborator (photographer, illustrators, performance artists. In the future, the project would like to put up a physical installation of the stories and interviews that are collected. Since the project primarily revolves around queer south-Asian stories, we are only looking for people from within the south-Asian LGBTQIA++ community to collaborate with.
Get in touch, if the project piques your interest.
DIGITAL PHOTO-POETRY ZINE
A zine by Varsha Panikar from their ongoing mixed-media series, Origami Folds, that explores curves and folds of the human body and uses it as a medium and metaphor for hopeless fragility and hardened impenetrability, from which emerges the themes of identity, dysphoria, commodification of the body, and denial and loss of autonomy as conditions of globalized society and cultures, through the lens of south-Asian, queer and marginalized bodies. and has also been curated by Zine Club Chicago (U.S), State University Of New York's Sojourner Truth Library (U.S), Queer Zine Library (UK), and Grrrl Zine (UK).
RAZA BY OFC
1st Edition of queer antholgy by One Future Collective, titled Raza. Featuring a piece from Varsha Panikar's series, titled Origami Folds on Pg 44.
FORBIDDEN VERSES
The 3rd issue of Marketplace, titled - SKIN, exploring the relationship and perceptions one has to and of skin; the meanings, memories, dreams and epiphanies that arise from analysing our relationship to it, both intrinsically and metaphorically.Featuring some excerpts of Origami Folds by Varsha Panikar on Pg 22.