Play — luvkav

It’s important to play.

I love to create art and poetry. I just create for me, but I thought it would be nice to house some of my creativity somewhere that’s all mine. It’s important to play and I try to make time for creativity wherever I can.

Creating for good

I want my work to make an impact. And with the recent events (the pandemic) affecting our globe and all of us so much. We have used social media to educate, inform and alleviate some of the stressors of this time. So I wanted to use my skills to design a graphic to share on Instagram and make an impact on issues that matter to me.

I wanted to create something to express some of the things that I have been thinking about in these recent months. While quarantining I've had time to really reflect on my experiences as a person in the South Asian community.
During the summer months, I've been asked more than once, from family and others in the community, why I've become so "dark" and equating this with me appearing lesser in some way. I let them say that, but this is not okay. This inspired me to create this graphic.

If you’re in South Asian community; you’ve seen the many campaigns for fairness creams like, Fair n’ Lovely, supported by high profile actors, even the likes of Priyanka Chopra. With everything that is being discussed with the BLM movement, I kept thinking about campaigns like this and how common it has become in many cultures to equate beauty with fairness. This is preference for light skin is rooted in effects of colonialism, socioeconomic status, class, caste... and RACE.