“Challenging patriarchy”

"These artists belong to different classes, ethnicities and caste groups. Those born to privilege are shown alongside those of Dalit or Adivasi origin… and those who collaborate with subaltern (subordinate) artists, local communities, farmers, activists and grandmothers,” says Nancy Adajania who curated the show "Woman is as woman does” at the Prince of Wales Museum (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalay). Spread out over two galleries, the Jehangir Nicholson and the Premchand Roychand, Adajania told Parsiana on September 16, 2022 that the exhibition "takes the form of an inter-generational mapping.” The oldest of the 27 artists represented is Zarina Hashmi who passed away in 2020. The youngest, Al-Qawi Nanavati, was born in 1995. As stated in Adajania’s curatorial note, "Whether they explore conventional media or alternative practices, these artists challenge patriarchal norms to express solidarity with the marginalized.”

Top r: Nancy Adajania (l) with artist Aqui Thami; installations from "Woman is as woman does"

Photographs of women on the forefront of civil movements like the Himalayan Chipko movement, paintings from the Ramayan, paintings depicting angst against dowry, graphic novels, freedom slogans and folklore from the marginalized, among other artworks, are part of the exhibition.
Viewers will see different shapes of speech bubbles to describe the installations. Adajania said she "used speech bubbles to underscore the different decibel levels in the show — the spiky bubble to present the declamatory tone of the protest songs by women’s groups in Gujarat or the squarish one to portray the thoughts and feelings of artist Durgabai Vyam about the humiliation faced by the Adivasi and Dalit communities.
"My emphasis (has been) on female artistic labor — ‘doing’ as achieving the impossible, whether incrementally or through radical gestures,” noted the curator adding that the exhibition draws on her research and writing on women artists since the late 1990s, which will be embodied in a forthcoming book.
The exhibition, which will continue till October 16, is, according to Museum director general Sabyasachi Mukherjee (mid-day, September 21) "our tribute to women power to highlight the transformative changes in socio-cultural, political and economic spheres.”