Anika Jeyaranjan

As a daughter of a Srilankan Tamil refugee, I have not experienced the horrors of displacement and assimilation through direct means but through the way I was raised. This trauma being passed onto me through internalized means has left my body dually facing present Western ideology and past colonial terror’s subjugating efforts. Both push the notion of my body being an object, a vessel, only fit for labor. Playing on this notion of the vessel, I practice the craft of Palmyra basketry frequented by Tamil farmers and integrate leather sourced from Cambrón Álvarez’s family with jute to place a functional object into dysfunction.

Anika Jeyaranjan (b. 2001) is an Indian-Srilankan artist born in New Jersey and based in Chicago, IL. She incorporates fiber techniques into her multimedia sculptures and installations. Inspired by how her body has reacted to its held generational trauma, Jeyaranjan creates artwork focused on bodily agency. She questions pre-existing western notions of bodily boundaries through distorting objects and environments that have been in contact with her own body. Jeyaranjan earned her BFA at the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) where she also received the Honors Tuition scholarship. She has been featured in exhibitions at SAIC, Probe Gallery, Parlour and Ramp, Rostrum 13, and more.