We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Manasa Thimmiya Appaneravanda a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Manasa Thimmiya, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I live by the belief that community is at the heart of my art. My experiences and interactions in this world are the foundation to all my projects. While I create work that reflect my struggles– as a woman, a person of color and being struck by disabling mental health issues, the hope is to create an impact and encourage meaningful conversation among masses.

India is just one of those countries where talking about or even dealing with mental health issues is considered taboo, socially and culturally. I believe this allows for more damage in our environment and doesn’t really aid in growth. Across several mediums: Painting, Sculpture, Installation, Performance, Video and Film, most of my projects, work to break this pattern by providing people a safe space to engage.

I would like to introduce at this point one of my more recent performances from 2023 called “Gattiga,” title translation from Telugu: to firmly hold or to strongly advice.

Inspired by my mother’s womb as a vessel of expression, I explore the ‘feminine’ and all her workings through gesture. I work with the experience of shared trauma of being a woman. The repetitive stroking and tying of hair in this piece, represents the expectations and standards that women have had to live up to over centuries, while the shaking of the head represents breaking patterns. This piece is love and anger, while also being a celebration and acceptance of our own truth.

Manasa Thimmiya, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Manasa Thimmiya Appaneravanda. Born and brought up in India, I moved to San Francisco three years ago to pursue a Masters in Fine Arts. I am a product of two distinct Southern Indian communities: my father, A.M. Thimmiya, from Kodagu—a proud warrior tribe—and my mother, Ratna Mala Thimmiya, a Telugite from Machalipatnam, a British company port back in the day. Growing up, I witnessed two communities and people from different castes coming together, teaching me about a variety of life situations from birth. My work is inspired by this diversity in community, traditions, cultures, and gender dynamics. Coming from such a diverse and rich background, I have always wanted to see my work as carrying this foundation. Always considered the “creative one” for as long as I can remember, I’ve been trying to break apart and fix things, drawing on every bit of space I could find and being a storyteller, which became my calling.

The impact of how the environment deeply affected me led to the diagnosis of first being an empath—from being extremely sensitive to everything around me, to experiencing depression and anxiety in my teens. My art, then painting self-portraits to prove to the naysayers that these mental conditions are real inhibiting diseases, was my way of easing conversation about what people refused to talk about back home. While pursuing my Masters in painting, I discovered that I was able to extend my practice into experimental film and sound, which eventually progressed to performance art. I now recognize myself as a social practice artist. My move to the USA made me aware that the understanding of social causes and issues in India is also shared here, and my story and work are just as relevant here as they are anywhere else in the world. In my explorations, I speak about my experience as a woman, a person of color, and the various tones of systemic oppression.

As I neared the end of my program, I found a lack of spaces that allowed showcasing work within a community that has very little access to the art world, especially when it comes to performance and film work. I decided to convert my backyard into one such alternate showing space, calling it ‘The Backyard Plague.’ The idea is to eventually take this community-led event to various backyards around the world. Why “Plague”? Because I believe that is what we do as artists: we take over spaces, creating a ruckus or a plague of sorts, and leaving a space with the aftermath of tiny impacts.

Now, professionally, I work as an artist part-time and as a youth mentor at an after-school program during the rest of the time. My current theme of focus has been working on everything related to the “Mother” and the “Divine Feminine.” This exploration adds another layer to my artistic journey, delving into themes that resonate deeply within me and reflect broader societal narratives.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

People often identify me with resilience. However, I have always questioned, why me? I felt like I didn’t belong in this world. Were people not seeing what was happening around them? Was I built differently?

Growing up, being labeled as sensitive was common in and around my household. People would ask my parents if I was still moody. While this ultimately led to my diagnosis of Depression, Anxiety, and Borderline Personality Disorder, I still felt unseen and unheard. Immediately, this became my life and art mission: to allow people to feel, be heard, and seen in the ways they wanted to be.

My diagnosis often inhibited me from producing work. However, when I found a ray of hope in bursts of energy, I would focus on creating. Keeping my art and expression authentic to how, when, and where I expressed myself became a priority. When I make art, I immerse myself in the project I am working on, often exploring subjects that take a toll on my already weakened state.

Being in a space of feeling brings authenticity to my work. In 2022, I did my first performance titled “Walk All Over Me,” which focused on the feeling of being taken for granted. Around the time of my final diagnosis, creating this work felt like being behind a veil, trying to be a voice within a vacuum. It was an intense ten-hour piece that marked my entry into this new world of expression. I used my body as a beacon of resilience while everything around me contributed to the performance. The pieces of found wood represented my trauma, and my tools—brushes, palette, and paint—were my weapons; it was war. As people made their way through the space, they would hear my voice asking them to walk all over me, almost as if I were taunting them to try me. The piece ended with a door slamming shut, signifying that I was going to take no more of what I was being put through. The durational aspect of my work directly correlates with resilience.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

The best thing we can do as a society is to create and provide a space where creatives can thrive. An ecosystem, at the end of the day, is something that needs to function seamlessly on its own, with all the little cogs fitting in the right places and moving at the right time. Just like in nature, where every organism plays a crucial role in maintaining balance, each member of the artistic community contributes to the vibrancy and richness of the cultural landscape. From the painters to the poets, the musicians to the filmmakers, every creative endeavor adds depth and diversity to our collective experience. That is where the community comes in; we already have the resources we are looking for, and we are the cogs meant to put things in movement.

During the beginning of the pandemic, I remember reading an article that highlighted essential workers, and I was deeply disheartened to see that they failed to mention creatives. We are just as important, if not more so; our work does what no other occupation can. Art serves as a vital source of solace, inspiration, and reflection during times of crisis, offering comfort, provoking thought, and sparking change. Making space to hold, giving that space to rest in chaos, and being that chaos that has the ability to bring about change. The “Plague” was born with this in mind.

To make a conducive environment, we must create space and welcome new ideas with the old. It would be nice to see more people also coming together as a community, supporting creatives with the resources needed and paying for the labor of creating. You do not pay the artist for just the work but everything that takes them to get there as well. I feel hopeful for the art world as it is ever-growing and accepting; it is here to heal the world. Not everyone can create or has the ability to, and we must give credit where it is due.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.manasathimmiya.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manasathimmiya/
• Other: Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user165445692