Inside creative research: Nivi Jaswal on the Biopolitics of Making

Friday 11th November I 15:00 – 17:00 | Online | See recording below

This session discusses the Biopolitics of Making: Food and Fabric and the urgent need for decolonising, and halting, the unmaking of artisan ecology and epigenome. Strategic thinker, social entrepreneur and vegan advocate Nivi Jaswal will connect the dots between colonialism, chronic disease, and climate change, and proposes solutions that an emphasis on ancient indigenous plant-predominant food-ways and fabric-ways might unlock – for growers, makers, designers, and all consumers at large.

Nivi Jaswal’s work at The Virsa Foundation began in 2018 when she was battling several medical diagnoses. She embarked on a search for her roots in Punjab (India), found camaraderie with Phulkari artisans and the cheerful hues of their Phulkari embroidery – only to realise their epigenome was just as ravaged as hers, bearing colonial scarring in their proud Punjabi veins.

Trauma leaves a genetic signature, and our body keeps the score. Virsa’s work quickly morphed into an investigation of how policy-induced famine, trauma of Partition, post-colonial geopolitics, the so-called ‘Green and White’ revolutions, climate change and an entrenched patriarchy have collectively robbed this ancient craft tradition of its soul, leaving an emaciated ecological mess, with the artisan at the epidemiological epicenter of it all.

The ‘Inside Creative Research’ series takes a behind-the-scenes look at practice, learning and research with an increasing range of speakers from all UAL Subject areas. External speakers are invited to open up about their practice to UAL students, away from public-facing engagements .