Shivani Pinapotu is a spatial thinker and designer interested in how space intersects with story, society and our sense of self.

Exhibit A: Hall of Frida

It begins with a ‘Hallway of Frida’, with photographs from various moments in her life, prompting the visitor to identify the famous figure for her personhood, apart from the stitchings of current cultural discourses that she has become a part of. Through these invariable constructions of Frida by unknown photographers, the exploration of Frida, and the self through the many lenses that make us who we are is revealed.

Exhibit B: Best of Frida

The visitor then walks along a corridor lined with mirrored columns, catching glimpses of their reflection while they walk to the courtyard adorned with flora endemic to Mexico, wherein the exhibit consisting of five self-portraits are scattered across the area. The visitor, now with the knowledge of Frida’s life, is able to understand how Frida turned herself into subjects of her own life in her self-portraits. She establishes several means and metaphors to not just depict her life but to also share in utmost vulnerability her own true feelings about her experiences.

Exhibit C: Hall of You

In extrapolationg Frida’s paintings, the visitor connects with their own constructions of themselves, to engage with her story with empathy and meaning. Shards of mirror are scattered alongside the paintings as well, attempting to catch the visitor by surprise, such that the visitor time and again confronts parts of themselves in the making of Frida’s story. The visitor is then confronted with a full-size mirror at the end of the exhibition which prompts them to question their constructions of themselves. A participatory art intervention thereafter, allows the visitor to express their ideas of themselves, much like Frida Kahlo, on a blank wall lined with paints and colored chalk alongside at the end of the exhibition.

participatory exhibiton design
Here I am, do not forget me: Reflections and Reconstructions of Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo was a lot of things- A Mexican painter, a ferocious feminist, the Indigenous other, a communist, a bisexual, a polyamorous wife, a person with disabilities, a cultural myth, and a cult figure, to say the least. Her paintings, particularly her self-portraits, however, paint a personhood struck with struggle and suffering, a long journey towards meaning and identity.

To understand Kahlo’s cosmos of images, it is imperative to contemplate this cosmos through the grid of her biography - Through which one understands that Frida Kahlo’s self image are constructions of dual nature; Constructions of her persona, drawing from her cultural heritage and artistic influences, and constructions of her reality, based on her own experiences and interpretations of her relationships and situationships. She did not paint to be understood, but to understand, and to resist the strife that she was confronted with. Her unapologetic gaze and presence in her portraits, and her fierce sense of self, are inspiring and contagious. The exhibition takes from this stroke of courage and attempts to connect her profound authenticity to the visitor themselves.