Humanized Plant Puppet Characters of Garlic, Cardamom and Saffron

In 2016 The Goethe Institute in Bangalore facilitated a grant that enabled the design and fabrication of three puppet characters to expand the idea and perception of gender. Humanized multi gendered characters of the plant spices Garlic, Cardamom and Saffron were created and presented to a live audience at the ‘Gender Bender performance art festival’ curated by The Sandbox Collective. Although these puppet characters were fantastical, their parts were constructed to be botanically accurate. Their multi-gendered sexuality and cultural identity defied all that is known as normal and yet they were based on the facts of the botanical sciences.