Last week, inside an old East India Company warehouse-cum-gallery space entitled Gallery Beyond, the established Delhi art contingent ‘En Gendered’ hosted the long-awaited Mumbai premiere of their traveling, multimedia art tour “Resist”. The exhibition is a self-proclaimed “temporal art intervention and protest” about gender-based violence and discrimination. As part of a “survey exhibition,” the show brings together a diverse array of high-quality visual works from over 100 established and emerging artists, as well as live installations featuring collaborations from some of India’s best-known designers and artists. In addition to the visual works, Friday’s impressive opening also featured music performances from two Delhi-based ensembles and poetry from notable poets and lyricists including the esteemed Javed Akhtar. The visual pieces, absent of their live components, remained available to the public until Monday evening.
Myna Mukherjee, En Gendered’s master-mind and third eye, cites the recent Delhi rape case as having provided the impetus to launch their first pan-Indian tour “Resist“. “While protests are useful to capture the frustration that entire nation is feeling, it doesn’t leave space for reflection. We wanted to have something that would allow people to react and provoke, but also to question, reflect, and really think about it in constructive terms,” she said.
“Resist” also represents a new effort to transcend the walls of En Gendered’s Delhi-based, three-story gallery space, to spread the message of social awareness and gender equality through mixed-media art to audiences throughout India.
The show includes a curated portion of commissioned and non-commissioned work from 27 artists and designers including Manish Arora, Arjun Saluja, Satya Paul, Kallol Dutta, and Gauri & Nainika. There is also a non-curated portion of the show entitled “The Wall of Solidarity” that functions as “a visual open-mic” inviting artists from across the world to express their feelings about the rising violence against women and minority communities in South Asia. Since its inception, the Wall of Solidarity has grown to include works from over 100 contributors. Even you can submit your work to be featured in upcoming exhibitions. To submit yours, send an inquiry to them.
An India native, Mukherjee lived in New York for over 10 years where she immersed herself in the art scene. After moving to Delhi over one year ago, she strived to bring modern art with socially-conscious themes to India, and founded the group En Gendered, which holds permanent residence in their three-story gallery space in Delhi. “Recently we’ve seen popular culture has been ridiculously irresponsible. En Gendered is an answer back to the notion that art cannot be socially responsible.” The En Gendered space functions as an open platform for established and emerging visual and performing artists from all over the world to raise awareness about issues of gender and sexuality in South Asia through the four disciplines of music, film, performance, and visual arts.
For pictures of “Resist” in Mumbai, check out: Flickr
