Dothead

color & sound RT 3:00 1999
(This installation were made by Swati Khurana, Shefali Mehta & Leith Murgai.)

:: View a split screen of'Dothead'
:: View Part One of 'Dothead'
:: View Part Two of 'Dothead'

video will open in a separate window

‘Dothead’ is a two-channel video installation that combines image, text, and sound to explore some of the ways in which racism impacts South Asians in the U.S. by looking specifically at the 'dot' (bindi). Music videos, Hollywood movie and television clips, footage of South Asian communities, quotations referencing racial incidents, and racial slurs are used to question whether the popularity of the bindi is simply fashion-related. I draw a deliberate connection between current fashion trends and racial violence and explore how this relationship impacts South Asian diasporic communities.