(In ref to the previous post asking people to discard clothes that they wore when they felt sexually threatened by actually sending it to the blank noise project.)
There were several prompt responses to the idea of gathering clothes as testimonies.
2 MONTHS LATER:
I HAVE NOT RECEIVED ANY CLOTHES.
some of the responses are below...
“I would really like to see this project grow. Though I cannot give you material support, being in Europe and not having (luckily) had any trouble in that direction whatsoever, I give you all my moral support for the brilliant idea.
I got followed a few weeks ago between Headingly and Hyde Park (about a mile of lamp lit street, quite a main road).It was about 9 pm at night. Again I was wearing the same red rain mac(it was spitting-true British weather), with a huge hood so you couldn't see my face. I couldn't particually hear much around me with the hood muffling the street sounds.I WOULD NEVER WALK AT NIGHT WITH HEADPHONES ON, LISTING TO MUSIC.I like to hear what's around me. I was wearing a short denim shirt with red tights and flat knee high boots. I wasn't 'strutting' my stuff. I was marching so fast with authority. The man asked me where I was going and....."Did I have any business tonight?"
Once I was on a day-train going to my grandmother’s and the train was really half empty. There was a middle aged man sitting in front of me and staring at me. He did that for a while, then he felt more confident and started masturbating.
I wasn’t wearing anything that could have provoked him either…
So it is…here in Europe!
This man kept asking me, “so are you from Spain?" i said no." Are you Italian?""no"" are you French"I kept walking faster and kept saying no....finallyhe asked if I was Indian....I said yes and I walked ahead.A week later I went to a university to use their library. I bumped into this very same person. He was a professor there.it was a very strange experience. I still don’t know what his intentions were. I only know that a similar experience in India would lead to a more drastic reaction....things like that are not culturally accepted here..
I'll keep my clothes till you decide. Then I’ll decide whether they can be part of theexhibition. They’re a favourite pair of pants and a tshirt, and I’m not ready to spit them out yet. Thememory you said was in the clothes is not such that Ineed to purge them of something. If anything, they'repart of a powerful experience, in which i retaliated,humiliated the perpetrator, created some awareness. Many of my young cousins (I’m almost 40) were prettythrilled and inspired.
i beat up a guy on brigade rd a couple of months> >ago. he towered over me and I’m sure my blows didn't> >physically hurt him, but I’m sure that a) he was> >embarrassed b) he'll think twice about elbowing a> >woman in the chest again.
Every time I allege misbehavior, I hear everyone pouncing to say, you asked for it.>>Rather my breasts teased the men, my hips invited their *fucking* hands, my eyes beaconed, and my dress was the open invitation--or so it is made out.
Yes, i have been a victim to this, but have not myself provoked the same with attire I was wearing at that point.
I 'm in France, how can I contribute to your project, are you interested by images or new text to print on some clothes?Tell me.
I was thinking about your project and wondered about something. If people discard the clothes they wore when they experienced any sort of abuse, it is tantamount to them saying it happened because of self clothes. It seems to take the focus away from the perpetrator and onto self.0
27.4.05
26.4.05
walking down brigade road
this photo was taken by mukund: on brigade road whil. I was walking around and he was documenting me.
http://www.fotolog.net/machlee
3.3.05
DID YOU ASK FOR IT
Dear Modest and Immodest,
Blank Noise asks you to discard one garment that you wore when you were sexually harassed or 'eve teased' in a public space.
This collective building installation of clothes seeks to defy the assumption that we 'ask for it', or that only people in 'provocative' clothes; 'immodest women' get eve teased.
take a stand. stop blaming yourself. your clothes. your body. Build testimonies.
The Blank Noise Team
Blank Noise was initiated in 2003. In its first phase Blank Noise comprised of a series of workshops conducted with a group of nine girls from the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology. The workshop explored the public and private identities of the nine girls and was translated into an exhibition for an audience that was viewed as victim, perpetrator, or mute spectators of street harassment.
In its current stage, Blank Noise is seeking wider participation and audiences. The project is currently located on Brigade Road. A series of performative and participatory experiments involving the public will be conducted on this site.
Within Blank Noise, one of the experiments being conducted is “DID YOU ASK FOR IT? ” When attacked on the streets the first thing we look at is our clothing. We question if we ‘provoked’ or ‘asked to be made victim’. The garment worn at that point of time contains a memory and is witness to an experience thus becoming a testimony.
Taking this notion forward, I wish to build testimonies through a gathering of clothes given by all those who have experienced sexual threat/ attack on the streets, and have at that point questioned if they asked for it. These clothes will contribute to the making of a public art installation.
Blank Noise is not a gender specific project and I look forward to your participation.
There is power in numbers. I have faith in the collective.
The supporting material and further information will be provided on request.
Ph: + 9198868 40612
Blank Noise asks you to discard one garment that you wore when you were sexually harassed or 'eve teased' in a public space.
This collective building installation of clothes seeks to defy the assumption that we 'ask for it', or that only people in 'provocative' clothes; 'immodest women' get eve teased.
take a stand. stop blaming yourself. your clothes. your body. Build testimonies.
The Blank Noise Team
Blank Noise was initiated in 2003. In its first phase Blank Noise comprised of a series of workshops conducted with a group of nine girls from the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology. The workshop explored the public and private identities of the nine girls and was translated into an exhibition for an audience that was viewed as victim, perpetrator, or mute spectators of street harassment.
In its current stage, Blank Noise is seeking wider participation and audiences. The project is currently located on Brigade Road. A series of performative and participatory experiments involving the public will be conducted on this site.
Within Blank Noise, one of the experiments being conducted is “DID YOU ASK FOR IT? ” When attacked on the streets the first thing we look at is our clothing. We question if we ‘provoked’ or ‘asked to be made victim’. The garment worn at that point of time contains a memory and is witness to an experience thus becoming a testimony.
Taking this notion forward, I wish to build testimonies through a gathering of clothes given by all those who have experienced sexual threat/ attack on the streets, and have at that point questioned if they asked for it. These clothes will contribute to the making of a public art installation.
Blank Noise is not a gender specific project and I look forward to your participation.
There is power in numbers. I have faith in the collective.
The supporting material and further information will be provided on request.
Ph: + 9198868 40612
1.3.05
UNWANTED. SECTION 354 IPC
The photograph has been readjusted to make the 'perpetrators' unrecognizable. Blank Noise seeks to build dialogue about street sexual harassment and is not attempting isolate any one person or incident. (2009)stalker no. 1: " Excuse me, have we met before?" machlee: no Stalker no. 1: Yes we have! On commercial street! I work in a call centre. I am a science graduate." machlee: why are you telling me all this? stalker no. 1: can I have coffee with you? machlee: can i photograph you? stalker no. 1: yes! sure you can! stalker no.1: blah blah blah
frequently asked questions!
Why this name? Blank Noise?
Blank: no form, no meaning.
Noise: heightens, builds, breaks form.
Blank Noise put together are two words that contradict themselves.
We experience eve teasing daily. It is a sexual violation but we ignore it. At the same time, we structure our lives to avoid the occurrence of it - by 'dressing decently', 'coming back home on time', etc, thereby making unwanted rules for ourselves and not recognizing ourselves as citizens.
This daily silent experience of street sexual harassment is what comes closest to the term blank noise.
When? Where? How? Why?
Blank Noise was initiated in August 2003 by Jasmeen Patheja from Bangalore and a small group of 9 all girl participants.
Blank Noise started off as her final year student project while she was studying for a fine arts diploma at the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology. The project was conceived as a personal reaction to street sexual harassment.
Jasmeen says, "The threat of being sexually harassed every time I was out of home and then labeling this invasion of my privacy with such an innocuous term as 'eve teasing' made me realize that this is an offence that has often been ignored or trivialized. Moving to a new city at the age of 19 made me feel more vulnerable to the situation where there was no 'home' to run back to. When I would discuss it with my peers, there was a normalcy attached to it – 'yes, it happens everyday' or 'it's normal', or complete denial, like asking, 'how come this happens only to you'
But I know it was never just my problem."
Jasmeen started by askinga group of over 60 girls from Srishti to make a mind map with the word public space.In three minutes words such as groping, fear,vulnerable, weak, staring, feeling sick appeared. She proposed the project but only 24 of them responded. The rest felt it was 'normal' or that it 'wasn't a big deal', almost as if you expect it and, therefore, accept it.
The immediate denial towards eve teasing as an issue triggered the project.
The story so far?
The first phase of the project, throughout 2003, was more reflective with 9 participants and workshops.
The second phase has been more public, through street interventions and blogging. To a large extent, the public and the media response have shaped the project.
The first phase of Blank Noise dealt with victimhood. We began with a series of workshops, which explored the public and private identities of these nine women. This collective participatory experience evolved into an installation that included video, sound and photographs. With this installation Jasmeen tried to address the victim, the perpetrator and the silent spectator as members of the audience.
The first phase of Blank Noise dealt with victimhood. We began with a series of workshops, which explored the public and private identities of these nine women. This collective participatory experience evolved into an installation that included video, sound and photographs. With this installation Jasmeen tried to address the victim, the perpetrator and the silent spectator as members of the audience.
The next phase involved public confrontation. With a grant from Sarai and support from Srishti Jasmeen envisioned Blank Noise as a participatory, public art project where she could take the issue to the streets, while including a wider base of participants.
In its current stage, the project has a diverse set of participants, who include college students, performance artists,researchers, young professionals, etc. We are currently working on public interventions that are performative in nature. This stage of the project has us disseminating and questioning the law (particularly Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with outraging the 'modesty' of a woman).
Through opinion polls, we are also attempting, most importantly, to be able to define eve teasing, which is such an open-ended and frivolous term.
What does all of this aim at? What are you trying to achieve?
We don't believe that one policy change or one street intervention, or one media report can change the world. We have to address the issue from multiple avenues over a period of time. Eve teasing is a societal issue, has its roots in patriarchy, reflects in films and in our popular culture. We are proposing to initiate a transformation, start the dialogue, through recurring public events, public participation and collaborations. We are looking at communicating, through participation, with policy-makers, as well. Blank NoIse is interventionist, and critically reflective of the issue. It seeks to confront, and create communitoes through public art. Blank Noise works with people through performance, blogging, and street interventions. This is a public art project seeking to address eve teasing. There are several ways to address an issue and we choose the language of public and community art.
Art? Social change?
We don't believe that one policy change or one street intervention, or one media report can change the world. We have to address the issue from multiple avenues over a period of time. Eve teasing is a societal issue, has its roots in patriarchy, reflects in films and in our popular culture. We are proposing to initiate a transformation, start the dialogue, through recurring public events, public participation and collaborations. We are looking at communicating, through participation, with policy-makers, as well. Blank NoIse is interventionist, and critically reflective of the issue. It seeks to confront, and create communitoes through public art. Blank Noise works with people through performance, blogging, and street interventions. This is a public art project seeking to address eve teasing. There are several ways to address an issue and we choose the language of public and community art.
Art? Social change?
Often people try to understand us by saying " it's great. you're using art to address social change". No we're not 'using art' ; we don't see art as a 'thing' that enables making 'visuals'. Rather , we work like artists in the way we perhaps open space for enquiry. It lies in the approach.
But art has, throughout history, played a significant role in social change. Even in contemporary times, artists like the Guerilla Girls, Peggy Diggs and Gran Fury have brought about change in societal attitudes through their art – on billboards, bumper stickers, posters and even milk cartons. For instance, since Peggy Diggs was concerned about domestic violence, she printed her message on milk cartons, which women bought. Gran Fury collaborated with activist groups and created billboards, confronting the public with the social stigma attached to AIDS.
What, then, is Blank Noise doing?
Blank Noise works with media that is both mainstream and alternative, depending on the nature of the project undertaken.
Our current interventions are:
What, then, is Blank Noise doing?
Blank Noise works with media that is both mainstream and alternative, depending on the nature of the project undertaken.
Our current interventions are:
I NEVER ASK FOR IT
Blank Noise wants you to discard your clothes worn at the time you were eve teased (sexually harassed) on the streets. This collective building of an installation of clothes seeks, primarily, to erase the assumption that you 'asked for it' because of what you were wearing. That you are to blame and only 'provocatively dressed', and therefore 'immodest' women are eve-teased.
We hope to gather clothes across different cities as testimonials of eve teasing and install them on the streets. We hope women will stop blaming themselves, your body, your clothes. What Blank Noise hopes to do is bring together 1000 clothes, install them on the streets, in public spaces and collectively defy the notion of 'modesty'.
UNWANTED:
Photographing the perpetrator:
Women camera and the internet.
There could be innumerable approaches on self defense, on protecting yourself. What works for us, is the camera. You could get even with your eve teasers, reverse the position of power through just one click. We have had experiences where people have apologized, admitted, felt shame for sexually harassing us. These pictures are then put online, Our friends in New York, HOLLABACKNYC are doing precisely this, It works! We swear by it!
The action of taking a picture of a perpetrator leching/ groping/ whistling/ catcalling is empowering in itself, through this simple act we reverse the gaze.
Street Actions/ Interventions
* Why R U looking at me? In this intervention, each woman wears one alphabet around her neck and we spell out the sentence on busy sidewalks, at traffic lights, in a mall, in any public space. And it's done silently. No-one speaks, no-one answers. There's only one probing question being asked – why are you looking at me?
* One Night Stand: this intervention needs women, by the numbers. We are on the street, on specific sites, significant to each city and simply, STARING. it will reverese the situation. there is power in numbers. this is experiential for both the performers and the public in the site. This performance is implicit. all participants are asked to dress in clothes they would not otherwise.- One Night Stand looks at women occupying spaces- literally by just standing around. " why are these women standing here?" Is that a question to be asked in the first place?
Opinion Polls
During all interventions, and on a weekly basis, we conduct opinion polls to define eve teasing. These are short polls, which take less than a minute to fill in and are to be answered by men and women. They work! They are participatory, non threatening, and everyone on the street can engage with it. This further leads to a collective definition of the term 'eve teasing?'
Is it all about the women?
It may be called 'eve' teasing and spoken of as if it happens only to women but we have found that men also experience street sexual harassment. They just have a different way of looking at their bodies and dealing with the issue. As women, we are taught to protect our bodies and we are layered with ideas of modesty and shame. Izzat. Lajja. Men are expected to be men – mard - and they are supposed to deny that they can be victims, too.
So a roughly typical reaction might be – yes, I got felt up but I pity the bugger because he's gay.
Eve teasing, therefore, despite its rather misleading nomenclature, is not an all-girl issue but a societal one. By being a mute witness, by teasing (sexually harassing) or by ignoring/ denying the issue, we are responsible for it.
Who's on board?
There's no one person. While Jasmeen Patheja is the founder member- today the project has evolved into a a people's project where different members adopt different roles and taken on multiple tasks to keep Blank Noise going!
There have been innumberable people involved at different levels. Sujata Bhat, Annie Zaidi, Abigail Crisman, Abby Baxi, Harneet Bhatia, Hemangini Gupta, Ratna Apnender, Yamini Deen, Chinmayee Manjunath, Pallavi Sen, Shreya Pilgonkar, Laura Neuhas, Ambrish Bansal, Uday Prakash Tekumalla, Sveta Venkatraman, Ritambhara Mehta, Marjorie Barboza, Soumya C. Shekhar, Mrajshekhar, Amit Kendurkar, Uma Girish, Dev Sukumar, Suparna Kudesia, Kunal Ashok to name a few. (as of 2006/2007) Saptarshi Chakraborty, Dana Roy, Sunayana Roy, Katheeja Talha (as of 2009)+
Every blogger that has participated in our campaigns has built the project. Every email, every public response shapes the project. Blank Noise believes that you are the agent.
Today Blank Noise team is a pool of many people with different skill sets. All members are volunteers from different parts of the world. Sujata Bhat in Chicago handles public relations, Abby Baxi, Amit Kendurkar, Ambrish Bansal and Uday Prakash have always worked on the technical aspect of the blog. Annie Zaidi and Abigail Crisman have been handling and nurturing the Delhi project. The role of the volunteer evolves over time and varies based on the committment level of every partipating volunteer.
Groups in other cities are now growing and to reach the entire Blank Noise team, please email blurtblanknoise@gmail.com
How do I know if I fit in? What does it take?
All you need to do to join Blank Noise is get in touch with us. If you feel strongly enough about eve-teasing and are willing to do something about it, Blank Noise would be glad to have you on board. And we can use any skills you have from writing to artwork to design to being net-savvy or just being willing to give your time to spreading awareness.
But the rider is that we are open only to those who are committed enough to go beyond articulating an opinion. To join the Blank Noise team, you must be able to reflect and take collective action. There are core areas where you can join an existing team. We also have regular interventions, which you can participate in. Or, you can propose a new idea, a new intervention, a new area of focus and go ahead by forming a team.
Currently, Blank Noise participants include researchers, college students, journalists, technicians, activists, an architect, and young professionals. There are both men and women, and just happen to fall between the age groups of 17- 30 years.
For the moment, we need people to volunteer their time in these areas:
1. Online projects – The blog, at the moment, and the website, in the making
2. Administration – Helping us with the dreary but vital tasks of correspondence and co-ordination between volunteers and city groups
3. Communication – Posters, artwork, banners, etc
4. Research – Apart from researching street sexual harassment and related issues, we need to archive the testimonies and compile findings from the opinion polls.
5. Interventions – To participate regularly in our street interventions and also suggest and implement them.
6. Campaigns- participate in the clothes campaign, I NEVER ASK FOR IT or the Action Heroes blog
Blank Noise wants you to discard your clothes worn at the time you were eve teased (sexually harassed) on the streets. This collective building of an installation of clothes seeks, primarily, to erase the assumption that you 'asked for it' because of what you were wearing. That you are to blame and only 'provocatively dressed', and therefore 'immodest' women are eve-teased.
We hope to gather clothes across different cities as testimonials of eve teasing and install them on the streets. We hope women will stop blaming themselves, your body, your clothes. What Blank Noise hopes to do is bring together 1000 clothes, install them on the streets, in public spaces and collectively defy the notion of 'modesty'.
UNWANTED:
Photographing the perpetrator:
Women camera and the internet.
There could be innumerable approaches on self defense, on protecting yourself. What works for us, is the camera. You could get even with your eve teasers, reverse the position of power through just one click. We have had experiences where people have apologized, admitted, felt shame for sexually harassing us. These pictures are then put online, Our friends in New York, HOLLABACKNYC are doing precisely this, It works! We swear by it!
The action of taking a picture of a perpetrator leching/ groping/ whistling/ catcalling is empowering in itself, through this simple act we reverse the gaze.
Street Actions/ Interventions
* Why R U looking at me? In this intervention, each woman wears one alphabet around her neck and we spell out the sentence on busy sidewalks, at traffic lights, in a mall, in any public space. And it's done silently. No-one speaks, no-one answers. There's only one probing question being asked – why are you looking at me?
* One Night Stand: this intervention needs women, by the numbers. We are on the street, on specific sites, significant to each city and simply, STARING. it will reverese the situation. there is power in numbers. this is experiential for both the performers and the public in the site. This performance is implicit. all participants are asked to dress in clothes they would not otherwise.- One Night Stand looks at women occupying spaces- literally by just standing around. " why are these women standing here?" Is that a question to be asked in the first place?
Opinion Polls
During all interventions, and on a weekly basis, we conduct opinion polls to define eve teasing. These are short polls, which take less than a minute to fill in and are to be answered by men and women. They work! They are participatory, non threatening, and everyone on the street can engage with it. This further leads to a collective definition of the term 'eve teasing?'
Is it all about the women?
It may be called 'eve' teasing and spoken of as if it happens only to women but we have found that men also experience street sexual harassment. They just have a different way of looking at their bodies and dealing with the issue. As women, we are taught to protect our bodies and we are layered with ideas of modesty and shame. Izzat. Lajja. Men are expected to be men – mard - and they are supposed to deny that they can be victims, too.
So a roughly typical reaction might be – yes, I got felt up but I pity the bugger because he's gay.
Eve teasing, therefore, despite its rather misleading nomenclature, is not an all-girl issue but a societal one. By being a mute witness, by teasing (sexually harassing) or by ignoring/ denying the issue, we are responsible for it.
Who's on board?
There's no one person. While Jasmeen Patheja is the founder member- today the project has evolved into a a people's project where different members adopt different roles and taken on multiple tasks to keep Blank Noise going!
There have been innumberable people involved at different levels. Sujata Bhat, Annie Zaidi, Abigail Crisman, Abby Baxi, Harneet Bhatia, Hemangini Gupta, Ratna Apnender, Yamini Deen, Chinmayee Manjunath, Pallavi Sen, Shreya Pilgonkar, Laura Neuhas, Ambrish Bansal, Uday Prakash Tekumalla, Sveta Venkatraman, Ritambhara Mehta, Marjorie Barboza, Soumya C. Shekhar, Mrajshekhar, Amit Kendurkar, Uma Girish, Dev Sukumar, Suparna Kudesia, Kunal Ashok to name a few. (as of 2006/2007) Saptarshi Chakraborty, Dana Roy, Sunayana Roy, Katheeja Talha (as of 2009)+
Every blogger that has participated in our campaigns has built the project. Every email, every public response shapes the project. Blank Noise believes that you are the agent.
Today Blank Noise team is a pool of many people with different skill sets. All members are volunteers from different parts of the world. Sujata Bhat in Chicago handles public relations, Abby Baxi, Amit Kendurkar, Ambrish Bansal and Uday Prakash have always worked on the technical aspect of the blog. Annie Zaidi and Abigail Crisman have been handling and nurturing the Delhi project. The role of the volunteer evolves over time and varies based on the committment level of every partipating volunteer.
Groups in other cities are now growing and to reach the entire Blank Noise team, please email blurtblanknoise@gmail.com
How do I know if I fit in? What does it take?
All you need to do to join Blank Noise is get in touch with us. If you feel strongly enough about eve-teasing and are willing to do something about it, Blank Noise would be glad to have you on board. And we can use any skills you have from writing to artwork to design to being net-savvy or just being willing to give your time to spreading awareness.
But the rider is that we are open only to those who are committed enough to go beyond articulating an opinion. To join the Blank Noise team, you must be able to reflect and take collective action. There are core areas where you can join an existing team. We also have regular interventions, which you can participate in. Or, you can propose a new idea, a new intervention, a new area of focus and go ahead by forming a team.
Currently, Blank Noise participants include researchers, college students, journalists, technicians, activists, an architect, and young professionals. There are both men and women, and just happen to fall between the age groups of 17- 30 years.
For the moment, we need people to volunteer their time in these areas:
1. Online projects – The blog, at the moment, and the website, in the making
2. Administration – Helping us with the dreary but vital tasks of correspondence and co-ordination between volunteers and city groups
3. Communication – Posters, artwork, banners, etc
4. Research – Apart from researching street sexual harassment and related issues, we need to archive the testimonies and compile findings from the opinion polls.
5. Interventions – To participate regularly in our street interventions and also suggest and implement them.
6. Campaigns- participate in the clothes campaign, I NEVER ASK FOR IT or the Action Heroes blog
A big thank you to Maesy Angelina for thinking, questioning and reflecting on the Blank Noise approach. We recommend reading through her posts to know more about us.
25.1.05
in context:
Art to me is about spitting and cleansing the self.
And now you wonder if I have been a victim of child abuse/ rape/ domestic violence.
None of the above.
Proposal synopsis:
Street harassment is an offence. It has been granted normalcy due to its daily recurrence. Street harassment also known as eve teasing needs to be addressed on the streets. The project seeks to build testimonies of street harassment in the public space and making them public.
A power game: I see hands a million hands coming towards me as I walk, now the body, my body moves its own way, it has a life outside of my eyes, my mind and so it moves away on its own; sharp, smart, body of mine.
My eyes see other eyes. Those eyes do not see my eyes. They see my breasts. I feel sick. My body feels sick.
I wear a duppatta.
1)
He turned around every minute. I decided to end my walk and take an auto for the rest of the journey. I crossed the road; he too was on the other side. This was towards Kids Kemp on
What could he do anyways? Half my size. I am a strong woman, I am!
2)Talking to me, taking my measurements the tailor's fingers 'accidentally' touched my breasts. Then onto the hips, calling out the measurement, telling me which 'design' would suit me, he ticked his finger on my abdomen as I stared at him in disbelief. Accident? Trying to gather both the incidents I told mama that he had touched me and that something was wrong with the tailor. This was as we were leaving the shop. If I don't voice now, this man will not learn a lesson. There were at least twenty men and the shop owner was an old man. I told him that the tailor had misbehaved. "Usne battameezi ki hai. Galat tareeke se chooa hai."
"Madam this is the first time anyone has said something like this. Pehle kabhi koi complain nahi kiya hai."
The tailor came towards me; masking disbelief…I decided to leave.
I continue to fight it everyday.
3) I walked into a shop on
I continue to fight it everyday.
4) I was walking on the main CMH road at about 6 pm one evening. It was not completely dark. It was neither quiet nor lonely. I usually look at people when I walk; my eyes are never looking down. a cyclist went past me; completely non threatening. I suddenly felt something cold through being soaked in through my clothes. He spat his pan on me.
I continue to fight it everyday.
I have chosen not to ‘walk out ‘of a situation but to stand right there, firm on ground and deal with it.
I react.
I am a labeled feminist.
In August 2003 I initiated the Blank Noise project, a nine girl participatory project which addressed our passivity towards street harassment in contrast to the normalcy with which we perceive daily rape reports. Blank Noise was my graduation project.
A group of 60 girls between the age of 17-23 years, was asked to make a mind map with the word public space
"power, intimidating, groping, boundaries, force, harass, tease, bump, ignore, games, demanding, run, insecure, withdrawal, caution, invade, abuse, not in control, anger, vulnerable, intrude, defense, mask, ownership. Escape, dynamic, private, abuse. Out of the sixty girls addressed there are 24 girls who felt strongly enough about this to want to 'voice' together.
Some of the reactions are stated below.
1- We do not experience it.
2- We do not have the time to address it.
3- “We do not have any such hang ups”. It really is no big deal. It is normal.
4- You can not change the world.
5- I don’t think I am ready to do this.
It is a big deal.
The workshops enabled the group of girls to explore their public and private identities. At the end of the workshop there were nine participants left and ready to share their experiences with an audience, which they believed was either victim or perpetrator of street harassment. In contrast was a video news piece, Hot News Taaza Samachar, in which I enacted a news reader that repeatedly read out rape reports and in the process was becoming a victim of what she was reading. She, the news reader was in denial of what was being done onto her. At the end she asked the audience “Is this news for you?”
In its first phase the project outcome was a multi media installation (sound/ video/ photography/ performance) within the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology campus.
Blank Noise as a public art project seeks to:
1) Confronts. Attacks. Heals.
2) Performative.
3) Denies denial
In its second phase Blank Noise seeks to intervene in the public space; the streets by addressing/ confronting/ the anonymous public.
Brigade Road is the cosmopolitan hub of this city/ flanked by billboards/ posters/ hoardings/mannequins. Brigade Road is also made up of people who just want to ‘hang out’/ people on a mission/ window shoppers/ and the time pass types.
This site is my laboratory on which I will perform a series of experiments. The nature of the experiment can not be predetermined and will emerge from the site itself. The only pre set is that I will be building testimonies in the public space.
An ongoing project within Blank Noise is “I ASK FOR IT”. How many times have you been asked or justified to yourself saying that you weren’t wearing anything provocative, and therefore did not ‘deserve’ to be victim. In ‘I ask for it, I ask for people across different cultures to give me the clothes that they wore when they felt sexually threatened on
When I think of forms like performance- costumes on the streets- getting people to interact with me/ as I am dressed in different costumes that – ‘deny access’/ a garment made of lights that allows me to walk on the street at night- a garment that reveals testimonies of the body – I am not configuring an end result, but the entire process of exchange and reaction.
My research also aims to closely examine the approaches and forms that I want to try. I want to address form by actually trying different forms. My research is on my methodologies. My research is on the language of my art practice. What happens when the nature of the work is in your face? What reaction does it yield?
Do look forward to your thoughts on this project. This is a collaborative project and I do hope to find some collaborators here!
26.9.02
Conversations with Blank Noise
A bunch of posts that explores thoughts on harassment and ways of coping.
Strategy 1 -
Strategy 2 -
Strategy 3
Strategy 1 -
Strategy 2 -
Strategy 3
14.6.02
Guest Posts
Every now and again there are issues concerning sexual harassment, "eve teasing", police intervention in rape/assault cases, legal matters (etc.) that none of us who work on this blog are experts at. Of course we probably have an opinion on it, but maybe what readers want is some more research, and a more informed view. Our Guest Posts are catalogued here on this page. We began this section with a guest post on the debate over sexual assault laws.
Indian Sexual Assault laws
Indian Sexual Assault laws
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