Footnotes to a Conversation, May 22, 2023
“Life is 10% what you make of it, and 90% how you take it.” – Irving Berlin
The Offbeat Sari
London, UK’s Design Museum’s current exhibition celebrates the contemporary sari:
“In recent years, the sari has been reinvented. Designers are experimenting with hybrid forms such as sari gowns and dresses, pre-draped saris and innovative materials such as steel. Young people in cities who used to associate the sari with dressing up can now be found wearing saris and sneakers on their commutes to work. Individuals are wearing the sari as an expression of resistance to social norms and activists are embodying it as an object of protest … The exhibition will unravel the sari as a metaphor for the complex definitions of India today.” [Design Museum]
Most of us won’t be able to visit the exhibit in person, but the museum’s website showcases 9 of the saris on display, including one made out of steel and silk and another made from plastic bottles decorated with sequins cut out of waste x-ray film.
One British woman of Indian heritage describes her reaction to the exhibit:
“Seeing the sari reclaimed to represent where India is going, as opposed to where it has been, is a powerful moment – and a stark reminder that I have relied on history and tradition to make up a picture of who I am. My story as an Indian woman now, though, is still very much unwritten.” [Vogue]
Her perspective leads me to think about how I translate my British heritage in today’s world.
Noxious Weed
I came across a graceful shrub with arching branches and delicate pink blossoms when I was in France. I did some digging and realized that it was Tamarix ramosissima, which is considered an invasive species in the western United States where it forms dense thickets and displaces native willows and cottonwoods. [Wikipedia]
So many species are considered invasive, from the lowly house sparrow to the delicious Himalayan blackberry. It often strikes me as highly presumptuous for humans to decide which plants are “good” and which are “bad”, particularly as that definition frequently changes over time. Invasive species are adaptable and reproduce easily. On that basis, could we not consider human beings as an invasive species?
Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I also post occasional articles on other dates, including frequent book reviews and travel tales.
If you share my love of nature, check out EcoFriendly West, an online publication encouraging environmental initiatives in Western Canada, and Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces.