For 131 years, Pen + Brush has done more than maintain a doorit has insisted it remain open. Open to women, non-binary, and trans artists and writers long before inclusion became a fashionable refrain. On December 14, that legacy manifested not as history, but as lived experience through Revolution in Three Acts: A Sip and Tell, held within Pyaari Azaadi's formidable solo exhibition, Talkin' Bout a Revolutionnow extended through February 14, with its accompanying catalogue forthcoming in January.
Lalitha Krishnan wore a sari on the plane from the south Indian state of Kerala to New York, where she was traveling to study for a Ph.D on a full scholarship. Krishnan would go on to do pioneering work developing pharmaceutical drugs that combat multi-drug resistant infections. When Dr. Krishnan finally received an award for her work in 1991-as a rare woman of color in her field, often witnessing others take credit for her research-once again, she wore a sari.