14.7.06

BNP NEEDS YOU!







Hello!

For some months now the Blank Noise Project team (that's all you guys!) has
been working on the clothes campaign. We are looking to collect a minimum of
1,000 clothes that women were wearing when they were sexually harassed and
string these together in an installation at a public site and will
eventually travel across many cities. The variety of the clothes we're
getting (salwar kameezes to tank tops) defies the notion that by wearing a
particular kind of clothing, a woman "asks for it". Street sexual harassment
is a universal phenomenon. Whenever an incident of 'eve teasing' or street
sexual harassment takes place, the first thing most women themselves and the
listeners to the incident ask is ' what was she wearing?' , did she 'provoke
him'?

Blank Noise also believes that women do have a right to feel good about
themselves, and wear what they please, without being sexually violated,
because 'you' think she's 'available'. We question, defy, and attempt to put
an end to the argument that women 'ask for it'. To establish 'asking for it'
as a mere excuse for sexual harassment, we are asking all women to send in
one garment that they wore when they were 'eve teased'.

Each contributed garment comes from someone's incident as a testimony, or a
witness and forms part of a larger collective.

You could chose to send text, describing yourself, or the incident along
with the garment.

Other than clothes being collected in the Blank Noise cities, Mumbai, Delhi,
Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad we have people from other cities
volunteering to spread the word, collect garments and have them delivered to
us. To volunteer as your city clothes collector, email us.

Amongst the clothes collection we have Asiya's salwar kameez from
Baramulla, Kashmir ( Naveed Saraf is collecting garments) . We also have and Suren, a
design student who brought back 24 (yes, 24!!) clothes from Chennai! We also
have Rani Kamal collecting clothes in the Andamans , Jimmy in Jaipur, Runa B
in Pune and Christina in Singapore! Which goes to show that the count is
finally increasing the way it should - each of you is acting as an agent!
The clothing count is up on the blog and we're really stepping up efforts to
get in as many clothes as possible. A formal public campaign asking for
clothes will be in place soon, but till then each of you needs to just bring
in as much as you can... even just four clothes for us to hit that magic
number of 1000!


So, yes, Blank Noise Project needs you!

Thankyou!

The Blank Noise Team

To directly send us the clothes, email us and we will give you the postal add.

19 comments:

Ischelle said...

wow. this is really really strong idea. I would love to keep track of it as it developes, and to learn where you travel when it gets done.

I would also love to contribute.

If you ever need more.

I, sadly, can always help you meet your quota.

J said...

will you send them across?

wherere are you based?

Prasheila said...

haha! my shirt's famous!
More clothes before the deadline... :)

Winz said...

This is a fantastic blog.

Being from delhi, ive experienced this on numerous occassions. sorry no idesa about the clothes since it was some years ago :)

Im definately going to frequent this one.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant!

Was surfing Worldspace and heard you speak.

I am a man and am going to forward this onto every woman I know. I have no idea who you are, but you make me proud.

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

You think it will be possible to try a few sting operations?

Get into a bus famous for trouble in a spread out group of ten - with enough muscle - verbal and vocal - and actually catch a few? Of course one wrong catch and it can backfire.

Just my thought..

Sweety Maruth said...

dats great idea !!!

i would like to contribute frm my side also....;-);-)

Anonymous said...

checkout:

http://savekerala.blogspot.com/2006/07/safe-city-or-just-dream.html

Anonymous said...

Good idea !! Wish you all the best.Women must come forward in large numbers to get rid of this social menance.God bless your cause.
cheers !!
george

J said...

thats great sweety misra

you can either send us your clothes or be the one to collect clothes from your city and send them to us. either way, let us know

thanks

Anonymous said...

I was in my SCHOOL UNIFORM the first tim e I was subjected to comments and whistles on the street. Wish I had one to send you, but I don't. Will follow your project closely from now on. Please let me know if you need any help with writing or communication.

Anonymous said...

I'm depressed. I didn't get whistled at once last time I wore out my mini skirt and bikini top. I would hate it and it would be sexual harrassment and whoever did it should have their eyes put out but so I'm depressed that I got nothing. NOTHING!! :(((

Anonymous said...

I hope you know that your section on eve teasers is a violation ofa number of laws. Please get your arguments straight for the extreme vigilante attitudes you girls have developed.
Also, by saying things like 'NO LOOKING' you come across as fake. And to top it off, you're organising night outs for girls so you can take more photographs of people who might be curious and are looking. That's your tactic. To walk around to catch people looking at you. That's really sad.

Jasmeen, if someone was to stop YOU on the street and took your photograph to put on the internets, would you not feel violated? Why is it ok for YOU to do it?

Anonymous said...

Good samaritan killed for protecting a girl from sexual harassment.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7242_1757339,00180008.htm

Indiafreak said...

Great idea! Keep it up girls (and guys!).

I'll be back in Blore in september. If you need any support/help, let me know...

Eliz

PS forgot to mention that I'm a foreigner. But does it really matter? I might not be subject to "traditional" eve teasing but as a white girl, I'm automatically considered as an easy girl. Eve teasers, behave!

J said...

hi there

right now all that we are working on is the clothes campaign. would be great if you could send us clothes or volunteer to collect clothes for us!

Does that suit you?

As for you being a foreigner, it really does not matter. Caste, country, community, sex, nothing no bar. :)

Indiafreak said...

1000 clothes in 40 days and it started in june. I'll arrive too late in India...

I'll contact u as soon as I reach Bangalore for further actions/compaigns.

tc

Anonymous said...

hey i m urmi from mumbai...i would like to become the collector for my city if u dont already have one for mumbai... n if there is someone,can i get the contact details of that person???...i thik this is a great idea n i m definately going to talk to people about it...

J said...

hey urmi

Do start collecting the clothes and when you have reached 10 or more, email us at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com right away

good luck!