Women Re-Claiming
Their Bodies in
R.A.P.E Show
JohnyML
You may ask why. To answer this question I have to go back to the time when I
conceptualized this show. Delhi was a morally shaken city after the gang rape issue.
Perhaps, the whole nation was jolted out of its complacency regarding the issues of
gender parity and sexual freedom. It is not that the Delhi gang rape was the only
incident where a girl was brutally molested that eventually caused her death. Our
newspapers and television channels still drip with the blood of women who continue
to be attacked by men. But all events and incidents do not achieve a linguistic status
of turning themselves into potential metaphors. Delhi gang rape victim became a
metaphor and metaphors are dangerous as they penetrate deep into the conscience
of people and remain there as a question mark. It is a thirst that demands the water
of justice to quench it. I waited and watched like any other middle class educated
man with a conscience would do, to see whether any woman curator was interested
in doing something to debate the issue of gender against the backdrop of Delhi gang
rape issue.
Quickies come out of sensational nature of events. I saw some shows getting
mounted and dismantled in the name of ‘women’. But I was in a different mode of
thinking. I wanted to curate a show that articulated female sexuality, freedom and
identity from a purely feministic point of view and also by principles I had thought
that I would never do a show that would deal directly with Delhi gang rape issue. As
a curator who has feminist sympathies rather than having declared affiliations with
its various factions, I wanted to do a show where female sexuality and its relationship
with the larger milieu of life in its varied entirety were brought into the context of
visual discourse. I considered both male and female artists and soon I realized that
the participation of male artists would collapse the project. Instead of posing as a
politically correct curator with gender parity as the prime motive, I decided to curate
a show of women artists. I knew for sure that when such an issue is debated, female
body (than mind) would definitely become a pivotal metaphor and if I had let the male
artists to work, the psychological dynamics of the male artists would have ‘claimed’
the female body with good intentions and ironic outputs. I wanted female artists to ‘reclaim’ their bodies in their own way and R.A.P.E show stands
justified because the participating artists have reclaimed their
bodies with verve and personalized political force.