Piyali is a Bay Area-based South-Asian artist, activist, advocate, survivor, and mother. As an Indian-American woman born in the United States and raised in India, her first-hand experience is of two cultures both with their own conflicting narratives of individual identity, liberty, and freedom.

Whether pop culture and social media’s message seems to be about liberty and freedom or about women abiding by conservative customs, life in the two countries is not that different. This recognition led her to explore gender identity more honestly, individual by individual. Through her conversations with participants in The Sacred Labyrinth she discovered that there are many causes for the shame we feel around our bodies. Through her art she speaks to the experience of individuals in terms of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, geographic location, socioeconomic status, age, and religion.

Piyali uses the adorned body as a point of reference for the stories of her participants. Having become a mother to a little girl, Piyali faces the urgency of sharing the lived experience of her participants in an effort to create an on-going dialogue to break the painful cycles of patriarchy, white supremacy, racism, capitalism, scasteism, and inequality in the justice system—all of which must be confronted because gender discrimination doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Piyali is currently working on a representation matters series of portraits, a series on climate change and other social issues. She is also working with mirrors to create infinity mirrors amplifying Buddhist deities. Lastly, for the last year she is working with the founder and director of Gyuto Foundation to write his biography.

Photography by Erick Tseng