Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Its easy to put a face to Yasmin. Especially when you are told she is from a small village in Bihar where women,for generations,have been schooled in conformity. What doesnt fit into the picture of a woman from a remote Bihar village is her art work that stares back at you at an exhibition in Kolkata. Titled Use Condoms! by the organisers,the piece,made in the traditional Khatwa art style of Bihar,talks about the importance of contraception.
The piece,done on a silk base,uses appliqué work to depict methods of spreading awareness about contraception. White silk cut-outs resembling condoms are stitched on to the base fabric and colourful cloth pieces resembling men and women are seen handing each other contraceptives. The collage also has the cut-out of a man being administered blood through a blood bag that resembles a condomsubtly hinting at the fact that contraception can be life saving.
Zubaan,a publishing house based out of Delhi who organised the show,was equally surprised when they found this artwork with a small Bihar NGO. We assume that these women,villagers with no formal education,are unaware and dont have a voice. Our exhibition,Poster Women II,an exhibit of works in traditional rural art styles from across the country,is to show these people do indeed have a voice, says Shweta Vachani of Zubaan.
The collection of about 33 art works focus on everything from female foeticide to domestic violence and even talks about the progress that rural women have made. We sourced the works from individual artists who could be traced and organisations that collected such work. It was amazing to see the range of topics that these women have worked on,mostly out of their own will and imagination, says Minhazz Majumdar,who has helped source and put together the collection.
Pushpa Kumari from Madhubani district in Bihar has never been trained in art. However,she has mastered the Mithila school of painting by taking notes from her grandmother,who was a self-taught artist herself. Her works deals with issues like alcoholic husbands,female foeticide and dowry.
I want my art to make a point. I am the eldest of five sisters. I have seen discrimination from very close quarters, says the 40-year-old artist. Female foeticide is one of her primary concerns. It may be difficult for you to realise how rampant female foeticide is in villages like ours, says Kumari. Her work,made with ink on cow-dung washed paper,revolves around a clinic,ironically titled Clinic Hope and Happy. The painting impassively depicts the way rural women resort to abortionthrough midwives and quacks. In the midst of the gloomy canvas is what resembles a surreal gardenone that could be,if the girls were allowed to be born.
Art forms like Khatwa,Mithila and Sujuni from Bihar,Patachitra from Bengal and Gond from Madhya Pradesh and Outsider Art from Gujarat have come together to voice concern about similar issues.
Patachitra artists Jaba Chitrakar and Swarna Chitrakar,from villages in West Midnapore,have come up with scrolls on prevention of HIV/AIDS and on empowerment of the girl child. The Jogis from Gujarat,traditionally singers who went around singing for alms,turned to pen and paper to come up with works that talk about how mobility and access to two-wheelers have changed the lives of women in remote villages.
Shiva Kashyap,a Mithila artist,takes a critical look at the concept of the ten-handed goddess figure and questions if the ten hands representing multi-tasking is celebratory or just a patriarchal assertion of a womans several responsibilities. Titled Goddess or Slave,the work depicts a deity-like figure with ten hands holding objects used for daily household choresbrooms,buckets,hand fans,spatula etc.
We plan to take the exhibition around the country to several cities. We are also exploring options to organise shows in suburban towns, says Vachani.
