A festival about local creativity need not be solemn about it. At Sunshine House’s Local Punk, the work is colourful, tactile, and wearable with artists exploring the relationship between independent making, cultural memory, and the objects people choose to keep around them.
The artists’ works differ in material and approach, but share an interest in individuality and experimentation. We speak to three artists who are displaying their artworks at the show; Malavika Natesh, Saran from Studio Maruvi, and Divyaa Ramanujam from Kaatumalli.
For them, punk is less about a fixed visual style and more about creating on their own terms, using familiar references and refusing to conform to expected ideas of beauty, utility or taste. Malavika’s work takes this approach into everyday objects. Her collection for the showcase includes art prints, stickers, keychains, badges, and tote bags.
“Local Punk to me isn’t necessarily just about rebellion in the obvious sense of being angry or anti-establishment. I think it’s quite rebellious about allowing yourself to be soft and earnest too,” she explains.
The objects she creates are intended to enter people’s daily lives. They can be carried, worn, displayed, stuck to a laptop or attached to a bag. “These objects are forms of self-expression,” she says. “You choose something because it feels like you and surround yourself with things that make you happy.”
Studio Maruvi meanwhile brings craft and material experimentation into the showcase. Saran will present brooches and pendants made from coconut shell, brass and copper, alongside new experiments that combine metal with palm leaf. The work began as a personal project and developed through collaboration with local artisans.
For Saran, the collaboration is also a way to support traditional skills. He found that some artisans who had practised their crafts for generations were losing their livelihoods. “So I took it as a challenge to utilise their skills, pay them fairly, and create something that brings these traditional skills into a form that feels relevant to today's times,” he says.
The materials provide a link to local memory. Coconut shell, brass and copper are familiar, tactile and associated with traditional making, but the designs give them a contemporary identity. One owl design features a bindi or pottu and uses a traditional riveting technique, combining cultural familiarity with an unconventional object form.
Studio Maruvi’s approach is deliberately direct. “We don’t cover up the materials by plating or adding colours,” Saran says. “Instead we play with the natural colours, textures and contrasts of the materials to make them pop and stay memorable.” He describes the practice as “playful, rebellious, challenging the status quo, experimental and thought provoking”.
Divyaa, whose Kaatumalli will be displaying art prints, clay keepsakes and affirmation cards, describes Local Punk as “like a bold next-door neighbour who always stands up for themselves”. Her own artistic personality is similarly layered. “I’d describe her as intense yet gentle, motherly yet slightly rowdy. She is graceful and fierce all at once.”
The tension between these qualities informs her depictions of women, who appear raw, unfiltered and unbothered by outside judgement. Her work also draws on the relationship between old Madras and modern Chennai. “The traditional culture that raised me shapes how I think, while the evolving perspectives of modern Chennai inspire me to question societal norms,” she says.
Some of her works revisit the Madras of her parents’ childhoods, while others respond to the city’s changing social perspectives. Her understanding of punk is rooted in this unapologetic quality: “To me, ‘punk’ represents this unapologetic, ‘I don't care’ attitude, whether in the people or the creatures I draw.”
Open to all. On September 20. 2 pm to 8 pm. At Backyard, Adyar
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