Par Nair: Silk Sarees from India
Posted: Mar 22nd, 2023 | Gathering

Par Nair (she/her) is an Indian-born interdisciplinary artist and researcher who lives and makes in the GTA. Her practice which centers oil paintings, embroidery, installation, performative work and creative writing, focus on dual identities, hybrid cultures and fragmented realities of migrants. Nair has recently acquired her MFA in Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art, Media and Design from OCAD University. Her works have been shown at Project Casa (Montreal), Mayten’s Gallery (Toronto), Nielsen Park Creative Centre (Etobicoke), The Public (Toronto) and Propeller Art Gallery (Toronto). Nair is the recipient of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2021-22), The Career Launcher Prize (2022) and Propeller Gallery’s Emerging Artist Award (2020). She currently holds the position of sponsored member at Propeller Art Gallery and assists the gallery with social media and marketing tasks. 

This work is created as part of Gathering, the inaugural installation of our new Collection Gallery, featuring community stories told through our global collection. Grounded in community participation, the installation presents over 40 pieces from the Museum’s permanent collection of over 15,000 objects from around the world. Choices of objects, responses, and retellings were gathered via open online calls for reflection, through partnerships with local organizations, and through artists’ interventions. Gathering explores themes related to migration and diaspora, the search for comfort in the domestic and familial, reclamation of ancestral traditions through contemporary artistic responses, and the relationship between textiles and the environment. 

This video is part of a digital project generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Now initiative.