title: double-diamond decolonizer

media: photography, performance, writing, installation

year: 2017

context: double-diamond decolonizer is a research-based project that explores the relationships between jain cosmology and western cartography, between oral storytelling and written pedagogies, and between my mother and i. jain cosmology holds that the shape of the universe is a double-diamond (14 rajlok). using this shape as an epistemological tool that is sketched, embodied, and written, always offered (but never translated), always inviting (but never letting in), the double-diamond decolonizes through unapologetic refusal and subtle trickery. it functions by not only challenging dominant eurowestern forms of knowledge-production, and reclaiming it for mumma and i, but also by making those operating within dominant epistemologies aware of their rejection.