BURNT ROTI

“As a trans person you never expect to see yourself in museums – our erasure throughout history is evident. So going into Gunnersbury Museum and seeing these beautiful photos of South Asian trans people, Shiva, Shash, and myself (!) covering the walls is just so incredibly affirming. We belong here and we exist.” -Sabah Choudrey, Diva 2023

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Burnt Roti (December 2023 – June 2024) was an exhibition which I curated in collaboration with the South Asian-led radical feminist magazine of the same name. Sharan Dhaliwal, the magazine's founder had commissioned portaits of three iconic transgender and/or non-binary South Asians: Shash Appan (she/her), Sabah Choudrey (they/he), and Shiva Raichandani (they/them). In my role as Senior Curator at Gunnersbury Park Museum I suggested the idea of hanging the portraits in the Museum's very grand Dining Room. The portraits looked great, but they only filled one wall, so my excellent  colleague Ishwari Giga and I took inspiration from the props used in the photos and 'Desified' the rest of the space; hanging marigold garlands off pillars and decorating plaster mouldings with artificial flowers and mangoes. In the middle of the room we set up a coffee table piled with current and past copies of Burnt Roti. By the table was an array of comfy chairs and a sign encouraging visitors to take a seat and pick up a magazine.  I wanted the exhibition to feel less 'museumy' and more like Burnt Roti had taken over the space for a few months.

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This was the first South Asian trans and non binary exhibition in England. You can find out a little more about the show in Diva magazine's writeup of it.​