Defamiliarizing Familial Memories

The Ganges on the New Moon Day: Pittsburgh Chapter emerged after Sayak relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from Boston, Massachusetts, in 2024. It is a process-based, poignant, and rhizomatic project that serves as an extension of Sayak’s 2023 project, The Ganges, where familial memories, cultural commentary, and geographic coordinates materialize through an "alluvial logic."

The process explores qualitative research and a diverse visual vernacular informed by lived experiences, including cartography, language resilience, urban geometry, material narratives, cultural etiquettes, critical autoethnography, and postcolonial satire. The installation utilizes a variety of primary materials: canvas, grommets, found wooden pallets, concrete blocks, kitchen twine, nickel-plated steel spring clamps, and melamine-coated wood shelving.

The Ganges on the New Moon Day: Pittsburgh Chapter was completed and installed in October 2025 at Atithi Studios, a Pittsburgh-based art, event, and makerspace.