Image: What does Home Taste Like?
Udita Upadhyaya's professional experience as a qualitative market researcher is a key component of her artistic approach. Her projects studying consumption in urban slums of Mumbai, working on rehabilitiation of Female Sex Workers in the red light district of New Delhi, and researching the survivors of sexual assault in Boston have formed a spirit of inquiry and led to a need for multiple, diverse voices to create a comprehensive view of the subject matter at hand.
Her work "You are So American" for the Chicago Home Theatre Festival 2015 is one example of this approach. Upadhyaya invited artists Sarah Skaggs and Tannaz Motevalli to add dimensions to the experience of race, gender, and nationality in contemporary Chicago.
Additionally, an invitation to share personal experiences of catcalling was key to her research for her work Water and Salt II: A Series of Public Performances.
Similarly, Upadhyaya is currently working on an participatory project What does home taste like? This project invites participants from across the world to respond to this question using text, image, sound, or voice. The responses will then be curated and presented as a topography of distance, exile, longing, and belonging.
To participate in What does home taste like? or learn more about the artist's research projects email udita.upadhyaya@gmail.com