Bhavani Srinivas

Introducing LIFT Grant Awardee Bhavani Srinivas! Support from the LIFT Grant will help Srinivas to develop and test key technical components of their latest work, including rubberized textile structure, fountain pumps, and audio systems needed to produce their installation’s dynamic sound and circulation effects. ABOUT THE ARTIST: Bhavani Srinivas (@bhanano ) is a multidisciplinary artist working across weaving, metalwork, electronics, and found materials. Their installations often bring together contrasting symbolic systems and layered references, moving between personal narrative, cultural memory, spirituality, and global histories. Through experimental material processes, Srinivas explores how meaning shifts across different contexts and scales, from intimate lived experience to broader social and historical forces. Srinivas holds a BA in Art Practice from Princeton University and is currently an MFA candidate with @ucberkeley_artpractice . Their work frequently engages questions of identity, diaspora, and knowledge systems, drawing on their Tamil-American background as well as wider histories of food, migration, and medicine. ABOUT THE PROJECT: Srinivas’s current installation project examines relationships between religious imagery and contemporary pop-cultural icons. Drawing from multiple interpretive frameworks, including Hindu understandings of materiality, cyclical time, and fan culture, the work investigates how devotion, repetition, and symbolic attachment operate across spiritual and cultural contexts. The installation will center on a handwoven textile that is treated with rubber to form a watertight vessel. Water will circulate through a copper framework connected to amplifiers and audio exciters, producing a sonic feedback system that activates the surrounding gallery space. Through the movement of water, vibration, and sound, the installation creates an environment where material, sensory, and symbolic elements interact. All photos courtesy of the artist.

Thank you come again!!

I can’t wait to see you at open studios tomorrow!! Meet my colleagues (see last slide 🦃) and see what I’ve been up to :))) soooooo excited to share with you all :))))))))) UC Berkeley Department of Art Practice presents MFA Open Studios featuring the class of 2026 and 2027. See what our grads are working on, meet the artists, and enjoy snacks and drinks at our scenic San Francisco Bay-side studios at the Richmond Field Station. Open Studios activities include a film screening by @swale.ha and @77h77777 When: Saturday, March 14th from 12pm to 6pm Location: Richmond Field Station, 1301 S. 46th Street, building 161, Richmond CA Artists include: Jaebin Lee @77h77777 Bhavani Srinivas @bhanano Rel Robinson @rel.robinson Lorain Khalil Rihan @lorainkhalilrihan Mark T. Duffy @mark_t_duffy Eleni Berg @eleniberg GG Campos @351amm Héctor Muñoz-Guzmán @hectorfmunoz Kristiana Chan #I7ua @kristi_chan Swaleha Masude @swale.ha Zuhoor Al Sayegh @zuzart_

Up for a few more days! Thank you coming!!

Bent Pins Have a Place features two works by Bhavani Srinivas: "Full Movie eng sub" and "Yvan eht nioj." "Full Movie eng sub" proposes that flawed and temporary structures for worship, celebration, and community are key informants for understanding the interplay between matter, animation, and consciousness. The handwoven textile at the heart of the work was woven on a floor loom as two layers that unfold off the loom to double the width of the warp. Errors reveal the draft—horizontal weft threads are unintentionally dropped or doubled on the bottom layer; the unruly tension of the edge-turned-center-seam evidences shifts in balance between forces of the loom and the weft on warp threads. Titled after the chorus of a fictional song to recruit for the US Navy from The Simpsons, "Yvan eht nioj" asks how music might move us in ways we don’t immediately perceive, offering up contradictions in the intent, experience, and effect of pop music by looping the messages of songs played in reverse. To view these and other works by artists in the MFA in Art Practice program, visit the Worth Ryder Art Gallery’s current exhibition "Bent Pins Have a Place." Exhibition on view: January 22 - February 13, 2026 Gallery Hours: Tues/Thurs 12–6pm, Wed 1–6pm, Fri 1–5pm Location: UC Berkeley, Anthropology + Art Practice Building, Rm 116 Pictured: Bhavani Srinivas, Yvan eht nioj, 2026, forged copper, casters, audio exciters, two-channel sound, steel spheres, plastic spheres, cookie tin, 8 x 6 x 3 inches (variable) Bhavani Srinivas, Full move eng sub, 2026, double woven cotton yarn, rubber sealant, electrical metal conduit and steel fittings, audio exciter, single-channel sound, cookie tin, 100 x 90 x 38 inches (variable) Bent Pins Have A Place features works by: Bhavani Srinivas Jaebin Lee Lorain Khalil Rihan Mark T. Duffy Rel Robinson 📷 Courtesy of Graham Holoch #artgallery #ucberkeleyart #exhibition #creativityatcal @ucberkeley_artpractice @ucberkeleyofficial

Our first year show “Bent Pins Have a Place” is on view through February 13!!!! Message me if you’d like to find a time to walk through together :)) @rel.robinson @lorainkhalilrihan @mark_t_duffy @77h77777 Amazing poster design by @77h77777

God loves you @marchaprilart Light into Material opens tomorrow at 7pm! See work by @majbazi @minude and me that came out of a summer of experiments with analog photo in the March April darkroom. And catch a preview of the upcoming catalog’s essays by @somijug and @minude ! The exhibition is part of Circa, @oneinstitutela ’s queer histories festival. Support the printing costs of the catalog by contributing to the kickstarter campaign in @marchaprilart ’s bio

Light into Material opens October 7 from 7-8:30pm at @marchaprilart ! I’m so honored to present in this show as part of the @oneinstitutela ’s Circa 2025, the country’s first and only queer history festival. See the show, which includes my first experiments with large format film alongside work by Maj Roshandel and Minu Jun, up through October 31.

The fruit slipped and fell right into milk by Bhavani Srinivas is now on view through June 8! Stop by to view the show, or schedule a tour through the link in our bio. At times they can see through, 2025 41 x 10.75 in Cotton, silk, horse hair Seesaw or skip over cracked concrete, 2025 24.5 x 9.75 in Linen, silk, horse hair Photos by @majbazi

I’ve had the best best time teaching the floor loom weaving workshop at March April the past few weeks!!!!! Come celebrate the weavers at @marchaprilart tonight & see their experiments w/ color, texture, and structure

The fruit slipped and fell right into milk Opens tonight at 8:30! March April Studio 698 S. Vermont Ave, Ste. 205

Join us next Friday, May 16 from 8:30–10:30pm for the opening of The fruit slipped and fell right into milk, a show by Bhavani Srinivas 🥭 on view in the studio through June 1. Weavings by our Floor Loom Weaving Workshop, taught by Bhavani, will also be on view. Workshop participants: Adriana Aviles @_c_i_q_ MiaBella Chavez @mia.baella Tiffany Chen @tiffanyc_478 Minu Jun @minude Mads Gobbo @madsgobbo David Gordon @davidgurdd