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TITLE: MY ANGER AND I ARE GOOD WOMEN
DIMENSIONS: 90CM X 180 CM
MEDIUM: ACRYLIC ON PRINT ON PAPER
CREATION DATE: 20TH TO 30TH AUGUST 2021
This work was created in collaboration with the Fearless Collective - an international feminist collective founded by the Indian contemporary artist Shilo Shiv Suleman. It is displayed at two sites in Delhi - Saket and the Lodhi Art District.
Please see the following two pages for more details.
The artwork affirms, "My anger and I are good women." and translates the same in Hindi and Urdu. While reading Manto's story 'Tutu', the Urdu word 'बा-इस्मत' (Ba-ismat) caught my attention and intrigued me. Literally translating to 'a good woman', it reminded me of my family's disapproval towards my expression of anger while grieving my mother's death in 2019. I witnessed her death in a car accident while I was in the car. As grief took turns and often showed up as anger, it unsettled me to think that even emotions are gendered. On chancing upon this word, the act of rolling my tongue to produce the sound became empowering and thrilling to me. It led me to explore this feeling and its nuances amongst several groups - people who identified as female and queer circles in lower and middle income groups such as myself. They all confirmed that expressing and accepting their anger in a healthy way is difficult. When they did express it, they were called hysterical, mad, and manly. At the site, I spoke to men as well and they agreed. Most of us do not have healthy access our anger. Through continued therapy, I realised that my anger was my call for help, desperately seeking attention and love. I was determined to give my anger my love. I slowly morphed into a self caring being. I still live in an India, where gender based violence is rampant, where those who identify as women are more likely to get violated physically and mentally, it is impossible to think that half of India's population is not angry. I wanted to declare it to the world as an affirmation to all the angry women like me, that our anger is a good woman just like us.
I often visit the sites where I keep speaking to the passing by beggars, rag pickers, children, female domestic help about their anger. They often tell me that they never thought about it that way.
Artwork installed next to DLF Avenue in Saket, New Delhi, India on 30th August 2021.
Artwork installed at the wall of Lodhi Art District in New Delhi in India on 20th August 2021.
