“We Have Accepted As A People That The Female Breast Is Sexual”:
Megha Joshi Objects
[Delhi]

Artika Raj

“There is censorship of the female breast and nipple only. While the genitalia of both men and women are similarly covered, there is no hiding the breast form. We have accepted as a people that the female breast is sexual. I object” In the art exhibition, ‘I: Object’, that goes on till the end of December 2014 in Delhi, artist Megha Joshi has an intervention to make. As a sculptor who uses a variety of media in her works, from metal, glass and silicon, to ceramics and photographs, this time around she exhibits her own body too but not through performance art, to make a very strong statement on gender issues. The idea of the female breasts, nourishing in their function but sexualised under the other’s gaze, finds an expression in her art that questions our very notions of viewing things. What placed where, how, and in what manner causes meanings to change, taking away associations and lending them new meaning.

On how ‘I: Object’ began, as not just merely a statement against being objectifi ed, but stemming from the need to look in to the factors that contribute towards it, Mehga tells us of the moment where the idea for it was born, “I had one of those out-of character, work-destroying fi ts one day when I had been working very hard in a welder’s shed at 47 degrees, dressed in conservative, weather-inappropriate clothing, not drinking water due to the lack of toilets in the area. And I got harassed. I remember the song the workshop was playing – “Sheila Ki Javani”. Th e rage and the humiliation, the frustration and the helplessness were just too much. When I calmed down, I thought about the cultural diff erences, economics, biology, cities, migration, conditioning, and ‘I: OBJECT’ started taking shape”.