Chatai (2021) by Janhavi Khemka
Janhavi Khemka (she/her) is a Chicago-based artist originally from Varanasi, India. Her work explores acoustics through woodcut printmaking and experimental installations that combine animation, sound, performance, and vibratory materials.
When she was nine months old, Khemka contracted typhoid, which led to hearing loss. Her late mother encouraged her to speak in Hindi, resulting in an emphasis on lip reading in a hearing-speaking world. Later, she sought her way to comprehend the language of the "real" world.
Activating her sensory capacities through touch, taste, smell, and the visual, Khemka attended Santiniketan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and art center, interjecting a lineage of largely male master printmakers with conceptual wit and an astute awareness of the limits of printmaking.
Khemka then moved to Chicago to complete her second master’s at the School of the Art Institute, finding herself gravitating toward animation, sound design, and performance, activating works on paper through sound and bodily intervention. Developing immersive works that splice together the two and three-dimensional, she invites her viewers to locate their inner assumptions and aural subjectivities within the strange and otherness.
Slipping between imposed identities like ‘disabled,’ ‘marginalized,’ ‘immigrant,’ Khemka transcends ineffectual terms, attuning herself instead to the possibility of listening to materials she works within. For her, it becomes a fictional necessity to ensure her politics are not foreclosed nor erased, theoretically and conceptually.
Khemka's recent exhibitions at Comfort Station and SITE Student Galleries, Chicago, IL, have received critical attention. She has also recently been awarded fellowships at KALA Art Institute Residency, Berkeley (CA), and the 3Arts/Body of Work Residency, between UIC and the MCA Chicago. She has worked closely with Japanese printmaker Paul Furneaux in Edinburgh, UK, and has recently earned the UC Berkeley South Asia Artist Prize 2024 and Lalit Kala Akademie Award for her installation ‘Sapna,’ in 2022.
During her time in residence, Khemka plans to explore her interior and exterior landscapes using James Castle’s unconventional materials and techniques. She is eager to learn more about his life and artistic practice as a d/Deaf person and will use her work to honor his legacy.
The community is invited to engage with Janhavi at the following events:
Inside the Studio
Workshop
Final Presentation
