Book Launch: STANDARD DEVIATION

6.30pm: In conversation with Standard Deviation's art director, Panny Chayapumh, writer Meetra Javed and artists Shrahda Kochhar & Misha Japanwala

700 pm: Special Performance

Refreshments kindly provided by Kin Euphorics & Gia Coppola Wine

Standard Deviation: On Love & Loss Across Time is a debut collection of poetry and essays, interspersed with playful drawings by Miller McCormick, she embraces change-whether seismic or small-over time. Javed reminds us to make room for the startling, life-affirming beauty that might await us once we reach the other side of each great unknown. Also included are contributions from Maxime Bagni and Frances Waite.

MEETRA JAVED

Meetra Javed is a Pakistani-American New York based producer, director and writer. She has spearheaded projects for Artnet & Cadillac, Bumble, Google, Document Journal, Telfar and more. She's also worked with the top creative agencies producing award winning content. An active advocate for artists, she has contributed to short narrative films by supporting up and coming directors through New York based production company Underhill Film. She has been on the forefront of leading brand initiatives specific to women’s health and mental health in a variety of ways, including organizing and key speaking for reproductive brands such as Planned Parenthood.

Her first book, Standard Deviation, was released in November 2024. A book of poems and essays written over 8 years, where she collaborated with Miller McCormick for illustrations, Frances Waite for art featured in the center of the book, and Maxime Bagni (a French sculptor, writer & artist). The book was featured in Vogue, and is available at galleries, including Perrotin Gallery, Ursula Bookstore (Hauser & Wirth) Bridget Donahue Gallery, Lichen, Dear Friend Books, Printed Matter, and Skylight Books. Her written work has been featured in respected publications such as World Literature Today, Sonora Review, and Columbia Journal (Columbia University).

In 2020, the LA based company SEED commissioned her to write a poem about the microbiome which was featured as part of 50 years of Earth day & celebrating science. In 2022, Atmos Magazine commissioned her to make a film-poem on Climate change.

PANNY CHAYAPUMH

Panny Chayapumh is a Thai-born multidisciplinary creative currently based in New York. She began her career at Brill Brill Studio in 2013 (formerly Jen Brill Studio), where she assisted in the research and execution of materials and assets for experiential campaigns, video content, and brand identity for clients such as Nike, Adam Selman, and Proenza Schouler.

From 2016 to 2021, Panny served as the lead designer for the renowned public art organization Creative Time. During her tenure, she developed comprehensive design systems for exhibitions, events, and print memorabilia for some of the most celebrated contemporary artists, including Pedro Reyes, Sophie Calle, Jenny Holzer, and Rashid Johnson.

Currently, Panny oversees creative storytelling and visual direction at Special Special—a shop, gallery, creative platform, and publisher that bridges the gap between art and everyday life.

Panny worked with Meetra to creatively lead the production and art direction of this book.

MISHA JAPANWALA

Misha Japanwala is a Pakistani artist and fashion designer, whose work is rooted in the rejection and deconstruction of shame attached to one’s body, and discussion of themes such as bodily autonomy, gender based violence, moral policing, sexuality and censorship.

Speaking to the objectification, commodification and control exerted on marginalized bodies by societies and systems enveloped in patriarchy, Misha’s work aims to create a new historical record and documentation of people — one that is on our own terms, and rooted in honesty, resistance and hope.

Through molding the body to create casts that are worn as sculptural garments, Misha’s artistic practice blurs the lines between fashion and fine art, clothing and nudity, and asks viewers to see the body exactly as it is. Her practice is an insistence for bodies to occupy physical space, emphasizing the notion that our bodies shouldn’t need to prove anything other than being allowed to simply exist.

Misha’s calligraphic work takes the form of silhouettes of the body intertwined with Urdu script — often in an effort to reclaim words and ideas that are used as weapons of shame and control.

Misha has exhibited work in Pakistan and the US. Her work is part of the permanent collection at The Tang Museum as well as numerous private collections around the world. Misha's work has been photographed for and written about in various international publications including The New York Times, Vogue, The Guardian, Vice and Document Journal. Her pieces have been worn by people such as Cardi B, Lupita Nyong’o, Lil Nas X and Joy Crookes. She was an honoree on the Forbes Under 30 list in 2021, and on the Dazed 100 list in 2024.

Her work continues to be an explorative, radical and shameless celebration of people and their bodies.

Misha Japanwala was raised in Karachi, Pakistan. She has a BFA in Fashion Design from Parsons School of Design, and is currently based between Karachi and New Jersey, where she lives with her husband, and puppy Snug The Joiner.

SHRAHDA KOCHAR

Shradha Kochhar (b. Delhi, India) is a textile artist and an educator based in Brooklyn, New York. Best known for her home spun and hand knitted ‘khadi’ sculptures using ‘kala cotton’ - an inherently organic cotton strain indigenous to India, her work is at an intersection of material memory, cotton legacies and intergenerational healing. Focusing on generating a physical archive of personal and collective south asian narratives linked to women’s work, invisible labor and loss, the work is large scale and exists as sculpture beyond whispers over generations.

She is also the founder and creative director of Imli Dana, an independent textile studio based between Brooklyn and New Delhi. Previous collaborations include Coachtopia, ASHISH, Marshall Columbia, Tory Burch, Collina Strada and others.

Kochhar received her MFA in Textiles from Parsons School of Design, New York. She is the recipient of the 2024 Artist Fellowship and is currently an artist in residence at the Museum of Arts & Design, New York. She was awarded the John L. Tishman Environment and Design Award for Excellence in 2021. She is the finalist of the 2023 Van Lier Fellowship and the 2022 Dorothy Waxman Textile Excellence Prize. Her work has been shown at the Melbourne Museum and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft among others. Her work is featured in PAPER magazine, New York Times, Times of India, British Vogue, Architectural Digest, Vogue, Crafts Magazine, Harper's Bazaar and others.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Hauser & Wirth, 443 West 18th Street, New York, United States