How I Made This: Maithili Rajput (CFA’25)
Maithili Rajput (CFA’25), a student in the College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts graduate sculpture program, is creating an ornate, human-sized contraption for her thesis project. Part of her final exhibition will include a 24-hour video of herself rotating inside it.
Maithili Rajput (CFA’25)
On sculpture, performance art, and the allure of a challenge
How I Made This is a series from BU Today that explores how Boston University students create their works of art—be it a musical composition, a fiber sculpture, a short story, a painting, and beyond. Are you part of BU’s creative community? Tell us about your work here.
For sculpture major Maithili Rajput, graduate thesis season marks her first time using colored pigments in a sculpture and her first time showing video-based performance art in a white-wall gallery.
All are factors in her thesis project, which combines elements of sculpture, videography, and installation art. For her final artistic challenge at Boston University, Rajput (CFA’25) is creating a rotating platform she’ll use in a video performance—incorporating her body itself into the sculpture. She plans to balance atop the platform, enclosed in an ornate column, and film herself going round and round as the device rotates for a full 24 hours. The sculpture, and the accompanying video, will be on view at the Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery for its annual end-of-year College of Fine Arts MFA Thesis Exhibition.
“I’ve been thinking about the human body as a material,” Rajput says. “How can I push it to its limit? How can I use my body as a part of my sculpture?”
In the SVA sculpture studio’s metal shop, Rajput welds an element of her rotating sculpture.
Rajput demonstrates how she will climb into her sculpture when it comes time to film herself.
“I don’t know if I plan anything,” Rajput says of her art practice. “I work a lot on instinct.”
Rajput is relatively new to metalwork, but says she’s drawn to the challenge of trying new things.
“How I Made This”
BU Today: First things first. How did you choose to get into sculpture as your medium?
Maithili Rajput: To be honest, I don’t even remember when I started making art. My first memory of making art was probably when I was three or four—I remember I made a chicken. Sculpture, as a term, came into my life pretty late, because when I was in India, I just knew of it as a craft. I wasn’t into it until I moved to Ohio for astrophysics, and I was dealing with a lot of mental health issues. On a whim, I decided to drop astrophysics and take art, and I failed my first sculpture class. But I was surrounded by so many things I’d never seen before, like a metal foundry and a wood shop. That’s when I found my place. There was a chaos to it that I really enjoyed.
BU Today: Can you tell us a little bit about the video element of your thesis?
Maithili Rajput: It’s very exciting, because I am planning to do a 24-hour performance. I was like, I can at least do 24 hours before I graduate, and I’m already pretty good at not sleeping at night. The camera is just going to be focused on my face, and it’s going to capture it every 15 seconds or so—each rotation. The video will show my facial expression and how it changes over 24 hours, but the audience can’t fully see what’s happening—they can only get a glance of my expression. It’s going to be this very absurd and cryptic video that’s about testing the human body’s limitations and documenting how it changes over time, which captures the absurdity of daily life in a 24-hour timeline.
BU Today: What’s the significance of the rotating platform?
Maithili Rajput: I keep coming back to this idea that discomfort isn’t just something to suffer through; it’s where something real happens. I’m drawn to endurance, not as a victory or a failure, but as a state of being. The body against space, against objects, against expectation. Especially as a woman, just existing in certain spaces can feel like an act of resistance. My work exists in that friction, where strength and vulnerability blur, and where the struggle isn’t just about pain, but about time, weight, and presence.
BU Today: Using your own body in your artwork is fascinating. Is this piece a departure for you in any way? Are you in the midst of trying new things like this?
Maithili Rajput: Before coming here, I used to work only with representative figures—bodies—and I decided to circle back to that, but instead of creating a body, I was like: why not have my body become a part of the sculpture? Or, why not make a sculpture for my body, specifically? I’m dwelling a lot in performance art recently—until my first year here, I had no idea what performance art was about, and I still don’t. I’m exploring it. I also try to avoid colors in my work by staying honest to the materials and keeping it as raw as possible. But this time, I’ve decided to add some colors. I’m using some symbolic pigments from my culture, like turmeric.
BU Today: I’m curious whether you plan your pieces with a predetermined sentiment behind them or if the meaning in a particular work of art comes to you only as you are working on it.
Maithili Rajput: I don’t know if I plan anything. I usually say, ‘These are the emotions I’m trying to work on right now, and I’m just gonna go with it.’ Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it doesn’t work, but I work a lot on instinct. For example, I made a cage for my first performance piece and sat in it for as long as I could without moving. But then, very impromptu, I decided to take the elevator down to the first floor with the person who was shooting the video. I told him the only time he should [intervene] and help me is if I’m dying. But I was struggling to open the door, struggling to get into the elevator, and it was taking forever, so [BU] police came to see if everything was okay. And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m just moving some materials.’
BU Today: Sounds like you’re someone who appreciates a challenge, then.
Maithili Rajput: I’m doing things that I’ve never done before, because that’s how I’ve been working so far—making things that people tell me are impossible or that I won’t have enough time for. I think that just motivates me more.
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