JEHANGIR JANI
MITHU SEN
WASWO X WASWO
MANJARI CHAKRAVARTI
QASIM RIZA SHAHEEN
BETH STEPHENS & ANNIE SPRINKLE

Days: 5th – 11th October 2012

Venue:
Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies,
2-2-18/49, Durgabai Deshmukh Colony,
Bagh Amberpet, Hyderabad-500013

For details contact:
vishaltondon73@gmail.com, wajood.lgbt@gmail.com
For directions to the venue, contact:
Anveshi: +91 (40) 27423690. Pritwinder: 09177103107. Smruthi: 09866706832. Rajib D Mukherjee: 09550277744

DETAILS:

This October, we are excited to bring to Hyderabad an art exhibition, ‘Exclusively Inclusive’, on pluralities of gender and sexuality. The show is an initiative of our group, the Wajood LGBT Society. We are proud to have as our hosts the Anveshi Research Center for Women’s Studies, who are also among the sponsors for the show.

The show is part of the pre-pride activities that lead to the Hyderabad Pride, also scheduled for October. The exhibition reflects the spirit of Wajood, which is all about inclusiveness. Thus, not all of the artists included in this show identify themselves as queer. Rather, most of the artworks in the show reflect the fluidity of gender and sexuality. That is the most important point this show attempts to make. There are no fixed identities. We have to appreciate and celebrate differences. Only then will we be able to achieve our full potential as a society.

We are showcasing a spectrum of fluid identities in this show. To begin with there is the artist couple that comprises of Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle from the USA. They call themselves “Ecosexuals.” To put it simply, they take the earth as their lover and through a series of performances they get married to its natural resources such as trees, snow, sky and mountains. Then there are artists such as Jehangir Jani and Waswo X Waswo, both from India, who question through the works displayed here the assumption that there are only two natural genders, the male and the female.

The art of Qasim Riza Shaheen of UK is a series of beautiful performances where multiple personalities speak out of the photographed subject. Gender, sexuality as well as identity are in his work curiously twisted to create mystifying self-portraits. In his photographs and performances, the personalities of the people he has known overlap with his own: a comment that our lives and identities are inter-related.

The show also includes two Indian women artists who do not identify themselves as queer, yet admit to queerness in their artworks. Mithu Sen mockingly turns the conventions of feminine beauty on their head by depicting herself as comical, devilish and as genderqueer. Manjari Chakravarti, on her part, uses art as an escape into the forbidden world of erotica. Her work is a soliloquy of hush-hush sex words discussed between women in mofussil towns behind closed doors.

Our exhibition at Anveshi attempts to reflect the diversity in subjectivities relating to gender and sexuality. This is an opportunity to catch up with a truly international mix of artists. The show is on between the 5th and the 11th of October.