Saskia Krafft

the poems I hear in a leaf.

the poems I hear in a leaf.

This project presents drawings by four artists Priscilla Suarez Aleman, Ruhee Maknojia, and Saskia Krafft. They met each other as graduate students at Columbia University, building a lasting friendship through their mutual quest and fondness for art, knowledge, and intellectualism. After graduating, they wanted to stay connected in a manner that could be visualized. To stay bonded, they started making drawings and sharing it as a method to remain invested in each other's art practice beyond institutional walls. At first, the project started as a light-hearted exchange that grew to represent a unique and unexpected period of human history.

A few months after starting this project, there was an outbreak of a new virus that later unfolded to become a global pandemic. Never could they have envisioned a world climate of uncertainty. The project turned into a means to stay grounded and hopeful. Drawing became an act that helped tie each of the artists together while continuing to make art during a shared global experience. This book takes an inward look at the little and large shifting moments of everyday life across landscapes that navigates the artmaking process during a pandemic.
Each artist comes from different places, cultures, and backgrounds. They use drawing as an act to disseminate an idea of a world that is interconnected and interdependent, rather than polarized and segregated. In many ways, the global pandemic of Covid-19 reinforces a view in which the world is more globalized, and people are more connected than ever before. Correspondingly, the artists seek to look at uncertainty through the lens of hope, acknowledgment, and strength.

This project aims to create a physical object where drawings made in different parts of the world can sit together permanently and speak to one another in a way that might transcend space and time. The artists aspire that this book will continue to relate to the viewer beyond the present in a meaningful manner.