" Dear Stranger"
Delhi Sunday Sept 3rd.
Location: PVR SAKET
Time: 5 pm
This intervention calls for dispersing testimonials of street sexual harassment / " eve teasing" in the form of letters addressed to strangers.
The testimonials are of various bloggers who took part in the Blank Noise Blogathon, (The same was done in Bangalore).
To participate call us at 98734 85284 and we will add you in!
Participants include:
Abby
Annie Zaidi
Megha Rawat
Naveena
Sveta Venkatraman
Saumya Agarwal
.....
31.8.06
29.8.06
METER CHECK!
counting.......180 CLOTHES!!!
Our recent contributors include:
Abhishek Baxi, Delhi has gathered 4 clothes
Annie Zaidi, Delhi brought in 3
Ridhima Rana- our volunteer in Chandigarh got 8
Siddarth Mukun Srivastava, Ghaziabad got one garment
Svetha Venkatraman, Delhi collected 2 garments
Keep sending them in! 2 months more to go!
Our Delhi number is (98374 85284)
Our recent contributors include:
Abhishek Baxi, Delhi has gathered 4 clothes
Annie Zaidi, Delhi brought in 3
Ridhima Rana- our volunteer in Chandigarh got 8
Siddarth Mukun Srivastava, Ghaziabad got one garment
Svetha Venkatraman, Delhi collected 2 garments
Keep sending them in! 2 months more to go!
Our Delhi number is (98374 85284)
7.8.06
Bangalore intervention
Date: August 6
Time: Late evening
Venue: Brigade and MG Road, four specific sites, culminating in a "men's area" outside the booze shop on Residency Road.
Modus Operandi: Participants to show up wearing outfits they wouldn't have dared to otherwise wear on the street. Not just the clothes, but also the attitude and all the paraphenalia: for instance if you're the kind who always looks down when you're on a busy street and avoids eye contact, now you might want to walk with shoulders thrown back and wear shiny "enticing" clothes, dark lipstick...
Intention: To explore the street as a site for negotiating different realities, to explore facets of your public persona you might not have, had you been alone. Confronting the male gaze aggressively, appropriating venues that have been male domains (such as the Brigade Road railings) for ogling women and generally hanging out on the streets and not scurrying by with our heads down and performing a series of quick manoeuvers to get out of the way.
We met briefly at Mota Arcade to discuss the sites where we would reassemble, decided on one near the ice cream parlour on M G Road and then dispersed. Phones would be ignored, we would try not to acknowledge each other unless we were recovening. The brief was just to get comfortable on the street, return and challenge the male gaze that we agreed we were always avoiding and to find comfortable spots to settle into rather than occupy spaces in and around those occupied by men.
Also, whilst standing, not look embarrased like you're waiting for someone (fiddling with your cellphone, being "busy") but just... standing. And staring.
People were asked to role play. So if your role for the evening was High Class Hooker, you would stand around not just staring back at people who made eye contact but also, perhaps, suggestively, enticingly. This was to explore how a street could be a different place of negotiation for different kinds of women and how men's overtures (so to speak) could be interpreted so differently across strata. This was a chance to cross over from one vantage point of the street to another end of the spectrum through a role play - surely an important part of understanding the street as a site for various power assertions and interactions.
In the beginning, six girls (and two men documenting) standing around staring back on M G Road didn't get too much attention; some men looked embarrassed to being subjected to a frank female gaze and bent their heads or looked away immediately. But when men were already staring and we returned the stare, it didn't take long for some to slow down and hover around.
One group of men kept walking by, winking and making suggestive gestures, till they decided to park themselves near us. We moved so that we were on all four sides of them, staring at them, till they started looking a little uncomfortable and then the two boys handed them BNP pamphlets. The encircling men and looking back thing worked really well, and perhaps we should have pushed it harder right from the start. (it's the bunch around the boy with the blue wrist band FYI)
When we moved to Brigade Road, more fliers were handed out, and, as Chitra pointed out we had to make sure we weren't initiating contact as much responding brazenly to a leer.
Someone reached out to grab one of us at the base of Brigade Road (and, no, she wasn't wearing anything "Western" or provocative) so we followed him to where he was headed - a few minutes away and silently handed him a flier. He took forever to read it and then claimed he didn't need and got on the defensive but we told him to keep it with him and keep looking back at it.
Our final stop was outside the booze shop where we could practise the encircling-the offensive-starer again. This time we were more in tune with each other's discomforts and the man and his friends soon disappeared inside the (safe male domain?!) liquor shop but Laura and Ratna followed him in and the rest of us went in a few moments later. They handed him some pamphlets.
This also brought us to what it would be like exploring places traditionally considered male preserves... like that arrack shop for instance. Not to prove a point "we can be here too with these charming, mostly drunk, men", but more as an exploration of gendered spaces.
Here's gender transformer Diane Torr for those who're interested. She'd come by to a Delhi BNP meet and did a workshop with NSD students who dressed in drag and then entered zones often dominated by men (Palika Bazaar late evening, pub etc) and discovered the difference gender can make to your negotiation of a public space.
Leave your comments or email us at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com
Time: Late evening
Venue: Brigade and MG Road, four specific sites, culminating in a "men's area" outside the booze shop on Residency Road.
Modus Operandi: Participants to show up wearing outfits they wouldn't have dared to otherwise wear on the street. Not just the clothes, but also the attitude and all the paraphenalia: for instance if you're the kind who always looks down when you're on a busy street and avoids eye contact, now you might want to walk with shoulders thrown back and wear shiny "enticing" clothes, dark lipstick...
Intention: To explore the street as a site for negotiating different realities, to explore facets of your public persona you might not have, had you been alone. Confronting the male gaze aggressively, appropriating venues that have been male domains (such as the Brigade Road railings) for ogling women and generally hanging out on the streets and not scurrying by with our heads down and performing a series of quick manoeuvers to get out of the way.
We met briefly at Mota Arcade to discuss the sites where we would reassemble, decided on one near the ice cream parlour on M G Road and then dispersed. Phones would be ignored, we would try not to acknowledge each other unless we were recovening. The brief was just to get comfortable on the street, return and challenge the male gaze that we agreed we were always avoiding and to find comfortable spots to settle into rather than occupy spaces in and around those occupied by men.
Also, whilst standing, not look embarrased like you're waiting for someone (fiddling with your cellphone, being "busy") but just... standing. And staring.
People were asked to role play. So if your role for the evening was High Class Hooker, you would stand around not just staring back at people who made eye contact but also, perhaps, suggestively, enticingly. This was to explore how a street could be a different place of negotiation for different kinds of women and how men's overtures (so to speak) could be interpreted so differently across strata. This was a chance to cross over from one vantage point of the street to another end of the spectrum through a role play - surely an important part of understanding the street as a site for various power assertions and interactions.
In the beginning, six girls (and two men documenting) standing around staring back on M G Road didn't get too much attention; some men looked embarrassed to being subjected to a frank female gaze and bent their heads or looked away immediately. But when men were already staring and we returned the stare, it didn't take long for some to slow down and hover around.
One group of men kept walking by, winking and making suggestive gestures, till they decided to park themselves near us. We moved so that we were on all four sides of them, staring at them, till they started looking a little uncomfortable and then the two boys handed them BNP pamphlets. The encircling men and looking back thing worked really well, and perhaps we should have pushed it harder right from the start. (it's the bunch around the boy with the blue wrist band FYI)
When we moved to Brigade Road, more fliers were handed out, and, as Chitra pointed out we had to make sure we weren't initiating contact as much responding brazenly to a leer.
Someone reached out to grab one of us at the base of Brigade Road (and, no, she wasn't wearing anything "Western" or provocative) so we followed him to where he was headed - a few minutes away and silently handed him a flier. He took forever to read it and then claimed he didn't need and got on the defensive but we told him to keep it with him and keep looking back at it.
Our final stop was outside the booze shop where we could practise the encircling-the offensive-starer again. This time we were more in tune with each other's discomforts and the man and his friends soon disappeared inside the (safe male domain?!) liquor shop but Laura and Ratna followed him in and the rest of us went in a few moments later. They handed him some pamphlets.
This also brought us to what it would be like exploring places traditionally considered male preserves... like that arrack shop for instance. Not to prove a point "we can be here too with these charming, mostly drunk, men", but more as an exploration of gendered spaces.
Here's gender transformer Diane Torr for those who're interested. She'd come by to a Delhi BNP meet and did a workshop with NSD students who dressed in drag and then entered zones often dominated by men (Palika Bazaar late evening, pub etc) and discovered the difference gender can make to your negotiation of a public space.
Leave your comments or email us at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com
5.8.06
HURRY!
It's pouring clothes! Send yours to the Blank Noise Studio in Bangalore or get in touch with your city clothes collector now!
You could also volunteer to be our official clothes collector in your city. People across various cities and towns have volunteered to collect clothes. Clothes have come from Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Baramulla. We thank all our volunteers Naveed Saraf, Jimmy Kakkar, Suren Vikash, Arpita Rawat, Payal Kamath, Sneha V, Anushree Jois, Gayathri M, Prasheila Lookhar, Manjula, Bhumika, Parmeet Soni, Ratna Apnender, Yamini Deen, Runa B, Rani Kamal. We thank you for participating!
Our deadline has been extended to Oct 1, 2006. The sent clothes will be installed on the streets of your city YOU DID NOT ASK FOR IT
Hurry!!
To directly send your clothes to Bangalore, email us and we will send you our postal address.
Our Delhi contact is: 91 98734 85284
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.
30.6.06
'DID YOU ASK FOR IT?'
1000 clothes in 40 days clothing meter counts 99 !!
Our volunteers are in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kashmir, Kolkata, Jaipur, Portblair, Singapore, Pune,...to contribute your one garment, write to us and get in touch with your city Blank Noise volunteer!
If you would like to volunteer your time and collect clothes towards the Blank Noise Campaign, Did You Ask For It? from your city, contact us at blurtblanknoise AT gmail.com
About 'Did You Ask For It?'
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'?
Testimonials of street sexual harassment/ eve teasing from women across age groups, and from diverse places tells us that women get sexually harassed in no matter what they wear.
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 'avaliable'.
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.
The garments given will be strung together and installed in a public site. We require 1000 or more clothes from participants all over. The installation of clothing testimonials will travel across cities Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai...
We have collected 99 clothes so far. 901 more to go!
The clothes collected include saris, salwar kameez, school uniforms, track pants, t shirts, jeans..
Thankyou Sridevi, Gayathri, Manjula, Prasheila, Payal, Bhumika, Ratna, Naini, Sakthy, Rajvi, Meena, Sahana, Neha, Tanisha, Shravanti, Sneha, Sharda, Suren and his friends/ sister in Chennai, Naveed and Asiya from Baramulla Kashmir, Aarti, Pratima, ....
To participate, volunteer, send clothes contact us at 98868 40612 or email at blurtblanknoise AT gmail.com
thankyou for participating
There is power in numbers.
29.6.06
Rape or not?
She got very drunk one night and woke up to realise that she had sex with someone in a corridor and could not remember whether or not she had consented to it. The man in question says she was aware they were having intercourse. She says she wasn't. So she files a case and the judge says - drunken consent is still consent. And therefore, rules that she was not raped.
The case has sparked off a tizzy.
What's your take? Rape? Drunken sex? Fair judgement?
The case has sparked off a tizzy.
What's your take? Rape? Drunken sex? Fair judgement?
28.6.06
WATCH OUT !
Blank Noise Project will be featured on Times Now , news channel.
Saturday, July 1st at 10 30 pm. The story will be featured in a programme called ' All About Her'.
The same episode will be repeated in the next week on
Wednesday at 4.30 p.m. and on Saturday at 2.00 p.m.
Saturday, July 1st at 10 30 pm. The story will be featured in a programme called ' All About Her'.
The same episode will be repeated in the next week on
Wednesday at 4.30 p.m. and on Saturday at 2.00 p.m.
20.6.06
Dispersing testimonials - Mumbai
Blank Noise Mumbai's intervention has been cancelled due to a sudden emergency. But please email blanknoisemumbai@gmail.com to be informed of the change in date/ venue. Sorry for the inconvenience!
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