Suchi Reddy, Colgate University’s 2024–25 Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Artist-in-Residence, opened her new exhibit, Bias and Belonging, during Arts, Creativity, and Innovation (ACI) Weekend, April 4–5.
The exhibit contains woven, textual, and digital elements, and it is currently on display in the Clifford Gallery of Little Hall. Bias and Belonging is the culmination of several community conversations Reddy facilitated on campus throughout the academic year with students, faculty, and staff.
Reddy is a New York City–based architect, designer, and artist. She founded her studio, Reddymade, in 2002, and her work spans the globe. It has been recognized with awards such as the AIA Brooklyn + Queens Award, AIA New York State Excelsior Award, and Interior Design’s Best of the Year, among others.
Bias and Belonging is Reddy’s latest exploration of collective experience as people transform themselves in digital and physical spaces. The central feature of the exhibit is a double-sided woven textile in black and white hanging from the ceiling of the Clifford Gallery. Icons representing the various ways participants experienced bias and belonging are shown in a grid pattern. Their feelings are represented in black and white.
Running along the center of the fabric is a red-braided cord in the shape of a heartbeat line, like an electrocardiogram — a concept inspired by being at a friend’s hospital bedside. The electrical activity of her friend’s heart on the EKG monitor fascinated Reddy.
“I was always interested by the fact that the line was a register against this grid of information,” Reddy said.
In hosting her campus conversations, Reddy wanted to ensure that the final product truly reflected the concepts of bias and belonging as experienced by the Colgate community. She captured the conversations in video, sound, and written responses to her questions. All of her observations made it into the installation.
In one of her earliest conversations, Reddy asked participants to come up with a single word that represented their earliest memory of feeling belonging — and then also bias. Reddy was surprised to find that, in many cases, participants used the same single word to describe both experiences.
Along three walls of the gallery are black and white projections of the handwritten notes from the community conversations. A line of digital iconography repeats on the wall, pulsing like a heartbeat.
“The icons are in a grid. The red heartbeat line as well as the running line on the walls — it’s blood. It moves in that moment, and that’s what you’re seeing,” Reddy said. “I like this tension between these colors. So it was a balance between both a conceptual match and also simplicity. And then the heartbeat evolved.”
Architect and artist Rachel Mulder assisted with the creation of the iconography used in the woven textile. Associate Professor of Art and Clifford Gallery Director Margaretha Haughwout also worked closely with Reddy. Artist Molly Burt-Westvig and printmaker Annie Klein assisted in weaving the textile for the installation. The creation of the textile utilized the TC2 digital loom in the Fabulation Lab of Bernstein Hall, a hub of creativity and innovation in the Middle Campus and the physical location of the ACI Initiative at Colgate.
“Suchi is dedicated to expanding our notions of empathy, equity, and agency,” said Haughwout.
According to Reddy, her Colgate residency will influence her future projects. “When you create work, you’re invested in making it, and then, slowly, the effects of it start to ripple into what else you’re doing. I know this will change the way I work,” she said.
Bias and Belonging is presented by the Art Department and the Christian A. Johnson Foundation. The Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Artist-in-Residence was established in 1986 as a challenge grant in support of the arts at Colgate. The residency program permits one or more artists to become part of the Colgate community every academic year.