Interview: Vandana Jain

Vandana Jain is an artist and textile designer based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her Bachelor’s from NYU and went on to study Textile Design at FIT. Her work explores the intersections of pattern and symbol, and spirituality and consumerism.

Jain’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. In the last few years, she has had solo projects at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY; Lakeeren Gallery in Mumbai, India; Station Independent Projects, Lower East Side, NY; and Smack Mellon and BRIC House in Brooklyn, NY.

Jain has received several awards for her work including the Emerging Artist’s Fellowship at Socrates Sculpture Park, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Residency, and the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant. Her work has been profiled in Artforum, The New York Times, Art Slant, Mumbai Boss, Kyoorius and Beautiful Decay. Her website is vandanajain.net.

Walk us through a day in your life.

It was October 2010. We had driven from New York City to Minneapolis, MN to produce an

exhibit at my friend’s vacant house. Her mom had passed away, and during a long and

debilitating illness, had accrued many liens on the house. The property went into foreclosure,

and along with losing her mother, she was losing her family home. This was in the wake of the

housing crash of 2008, when the ”too big too fail” banks had been bailed out by our government.

But our friend had no one to bail her out, and instead of assuming the debt and taking on the

house, she decided to make it into a art exhibition for her community.

We had met Mirelle in NYC, so now it was me and my three friends in a van, driving to

Minneapolis to help put together this show of about 30 artists working with the themes of home,

health and domesticity. I made a large figure out of a black, tar-like paint directly on the wall

where an entertainment unit had left traces on the wallpaper. And in the backyard, I hung my

Prayer Flags for Healthcare, made a year before to talk about the need for a system that worked for all Americans. Over the course of two weeks, we worked with Mirelle’s community in Minneapolis, putting

together a show with all of our individual work, but also talking about loss — the loss of Mirelle’s

mom, of the house, of all the houses all across the country. It was an exhibition where we came together to show our strength and our compassion.

When did you know that this was what you wanted to do with your life? How did you get

started?

When I was in high school and I took a black and white photo class and I was hooked from the first roll of film. I had never been a great drawer or painter, so the camera opened up an exciting

route into creative thinking and seeing. When i got to university, I decided to major in Art and Art History, and then after a couple of years working the usual low level art jobs (security guard, gallery girl etc.), I got a certificate in Textile Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. This decision really allowed me to pursue art on a whole different level, since it led to higher rates and freelance opportunities that allowed me to have the time and space to make work.

How have you developed your career?

Mostly by creating and participating in communities of other like-minded artists. I have been involved with ABC No Rio, a punk rock creative community center on the Lower East Side for over 20 years, and its been a place for me to develop my work as well as find a receptive

audience. I also have a wide-ranging collaborative practice with my friends (we work under the name Artcodex) where we approach political and social issues with humor and acerbic wit.

Additionally, I make a point of doing studio visits with fellow artists, curating shows occasionally, and going to openings to support other artists work.

What was the biggest opposing force that you encountered on your creative journey?

It can be very difficult, especially as you get older, to continue to have faith in your work. Many

of the opportunities and fellowships are geared towards emerging artists, so there is less

external validation, and less spontaneous community. A lot of the work happens in isolation and takes a lot of discipline and self-motivation. Especially as my work is based in projects and

ideas, it is easy to get distracted and lose momentum.

Walk us through one of your most recent pieces of artwork.

For my solo show at Hallwalls, in Buffalo in March, I finished Valorization, a diptych composed of one large felt applique and an embroidered dollar bill. The felt work charts the top 25 corporations in the US from 1955 to the present, according to data gathered by Fortune Magazine. Next to this was the dollar bill hand-embroidered with two lines, representing the rise in productivity and the stagnation of real wages during roughly the same period of time. I wanted

to contrast and compare the two American economies — one of the stock market and capital, and the one that hits us in our pockets.

What does your work aim to say? Why do you create artwork?

When I started this body of work in 2003, radially arranging corporate logos and brands into

what I called “mandalas”, I was specifically interested in juxtaposing consumer culture and identity with spirituality. In the 15 years since, I have used my work to question the privatization of public spaces, the invisible costs of globalization and outsourcing, and the various national

alignments in international economic groups. Most recently, I have been thinking about the

growing monopolization of industries, the rise of inequality, and the consolidation of power into

fewer and fewer hands.

What about the creative process excites you the most?

So much of the process is mundane work — sketches and ideas that go nowhere, experiments that fail, writing and polishing text to express what is better said through the artwork, and applying for opportunities and getting your work out there. But then occasionally, all of this

groundwork pays off, and you find yourself receiving a gift of an idea, something that comes out of nowhere, but fully formed and perfect in everyway; its electric, and extremely satisfying.

How do you overcome creative blocks?

Creative blocks always seem insurmountable. All of a sudden you are lost in a forest, and all the trees look the same and you really don’t know why you came this way in the first place! The trick is to not get too worked up, and instead find your way back to the things that you love about what you do. For me, this usually looks like a lot of experimenting with new materials, digging out old works, collaborating with other people and using this time to grow in a new way.

What project are you working on now?

I’m working with a lot of cast-off packaging from consumer goods. I have been collecting plastic that I find on the street and in my daily life. My favorite are those multi-armed plastic hangers, that used to hold some baby clothes or socks, and look like strange skeletons. I’ve been taking

these objects and sewing them onto velvet, arranged by type and size as if they were a

taxonomic collection of insects. Especially as we realize the high cost of single use petroleum products, these things will eventually go extinct, and we can forget them in some dusty museums.

Who or what are your biggest influences?

I take a lot of inspiration from traditional crafts and arts, and thinking about the resources and labor that go into making something. People all over the world have developed such refined and specific techniques of creating meaning and beauty, and these labor intensive techniques jar with the fast-paced world today. Is it possible to value the handmade, the local, and the meaningful again, without it just becoming the newest consumer trend? How do we tackle the desire for the new and soon to be disposable that seems to be such a driving force for our culture?

What are your hobbies?

My hobbies are pretty basic — reading books, listening to music, walking and hiking, and traveling to far away places.