The Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC has awarded a 2024 Summer Visual Grant to Spandita Malik for her upcoming solo exhibition, “Jāḷī—Meshes of Resistance”

Spandita Malik is a visual artist from India, currently based in New York City. She received her MFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design. Malik’s work delves into the global socio-political landscape, with a focus on women’s rights and gendered violence. Specializing in process-based photography, her recent projects include photographic surface embroideries and collaborations with women in India. Her practice in expanded documentary and social practice challenges traditional documentary aesthetics, aiming to decolonize the representation of India.

Malik has been awarded the Women Photograph Project Grant, The 30: New and Emerging Photographers Award, LensCulture Critics' Choice Award, En Foco Photography Fellowship, and Firecracker Photographic Grant. She has also been nominated for the Foam Paul Huf Award (2021) and Mast Foundation for Photography Grant (2023). Malik has participated in residencies such as Light Work, Charlotte Street Foundation, Silver Arts Projects, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, Baxter St Workspace, and Feminist Incubator. Her work has been exhibited at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Arts, Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, and Sharjah Art Foundation, among others. Publications like Artsy, Harper’s Magazine, and The Washington Post have featured her work. She was named ‘Ones to Watch 2020’ by the British Journal of Photography.

In Sanskrit, jāḷī refers to the openwork seen in architecture, metalwork, and embroidery. In this context, jāḷī signifies an openwork stitch that forms a delicate mesh structure, symbolizing the interconnectedness of stories and experiences. For the past five years, Spandita Malik has been working with women across various villages in India, regions still deeply affected by endemic gendered violence. Many of these women are confined to their homes by their husbands or fathers, or they feel unsafe venturing outside. Some have shared their experiences of domestic violence with Malik.

Malik meets with these women, photographing them in places and ways that they choose. She then transfers the images onto local homespun muslin, a fabric reminiscent of Gandhi's khadi, the cloth he promoted as a symbol of resistance against British industrial dependence. The portraits are sent back to the women, who embellish their likenesses with embroidery, reflecting their own visions of how they wish to be seen. These artistic collaborations challenge the traditional notion of the artist as the sole creator, allowing each woman to assert her own creative identity through her craft. By enabling these women to shape their own representations, Malik aims to join and extend their networks of support, reaching beyond the confined spaces they are forced to inhabit.

Malik feels privileged to be entrusted with these stories—to listen, to question, and to share them responsibly. These collaborations forge a connection between Malik and the women, as they reclaim the narrative of their portraits through embroidery, reshaping the language of the photograph itself.