At the Alliance Française de Trivandrum, a six-metre-long sari stretches across the wall, carrying portraits, landscapes, and fragments of memory.
Titled ‘Voices of the Western Coast’, this textile artwork by Franco-Indian artist Olympe Ramakrishna looks at women as carriers of culture and identity.
Rather than presenting tradition as something fixed, the work focuses on how it moves through generations and daily life.
The artwork is printed on a traditional white Kerala cotton sari, displayed horizontally. Originally conceived as a triptych of oil paintings, the piece was photographed, digitally assembled, and then printed onto the sari. It features six women from Kerala, arranged as three mother-daughter pairs.
“Here, I tried to represent Kerala not only as a place but also as a memory carried by people. The daughters portrayed here live outside in cities like Bengaluru, Delhi, or abroad, but maintain connections through language, food, festivals, and clothing. These everyday practices become ways of holding on to a sense of belonging,” she says.
Her primary question was, ‘Do you still feel like a woman of Kerala, and what does it mean when you don’t live there?’ She then interviewed about 20 women.
“I had many discussions with them. For them, the answer is clear — they are Kerala women. For them, the connection to their roots comes from varying ways — meeting another Malayali, wearing traditional saris on occasions, eating Kerala food, or watching Malayalam films with friends,” she says.
After understanding this, she began her work. “They posed for me; I sketched them, and translated the idea into my own artistic language.”
Nature also plays a central role in the artwork. The painted scenes feature tea plantations, rivers, hills, and dense vegetation, along with kingfishers, cows, monkeys, and snakes.
“I live in Bengaluru and have previously worked with women there, but I wanted to explore women in other South Indian states as well. One of the models in this artwork came to me for a painting internship, and when I found she was from Kerala, I thought, why not start working in Kerala? That’s how the idea came about,” she explains.
Saris hold special significance for her. “My father was a fashion designer, and I grew up surrounded by silk and embroidery. So, I have this connection with textiles. In Bengaluru, I worked on Karnataka silk. For Kerala, I wanted to work on cotton saris,” she says.
Olympe captures the sight of saris drying on terraces or in gardens, a scene she loves to watch. “It evokes a feeling of transparency and movement,” she smiles.
Raised in an artistic environment, Olympe naturally gravitated towards the creative field. Now her practice combines painting, collage, textile work, and embroidery to explore femininity and contemporary female identity.
“After coming to India, I was inspired by so many colours. There is more freedom in art here compared to where I come from. My work is now more colourful, and textiles continue to inspire me,” she adds.
After marrying an Indian, she now lives and works between Normandy, France, and Bengaluru, collaborating closely with the Alliance Française for the past few years.