Touch | Mixed media Thread Stitch on film negatives (120 mm)
"Touch is based on the historical injustices imposed upon the Dalit body—a body forced into self-identification*, left exposed, punished, and stripped of adornment. This body, associated with waste and death, was deemed impure, yet paradoxically, untouchable women faced routine sexual violation, exposing a perverse abuse of power.
Using black thread, which was used in the identification and discrimination of Dalits, I engage in an act of deconstruction. The stitching on the film negatives is destruction of the Image of the Body, the act is an expression of frustration, highlighting the absurdity of a society that simultaneously deems the untouchable body expendable and subjects it to a disturbing lust.
.*Dalits were forced to identify themselves by wearing black thread around their neck and wrists. In some parts of Tamil Nadu Dalit women were not allowed to use sandal on their skin or wear flowers.
Context
The abolition of untouchability is a recent development in the history of the Hindu majority country, India. It was done by the constitution of independent India in 1950 under article 17. Multiple reforms have since been implemented in relation to untouchability and the civil rights of schedule caste and scheduled tribes. Nevertheless, the Dalit community even today, witness many caste related crimes. Discrimination, Lynching and hate crimes are disturbingly a social reality for a large sect of the community. Many of the crimes are closely associated with Dalit assertion.
The Systemic oppression of Dalits by caste Hindus was founded with the body as it’s crux. Everything then, that was associated with the body and its everyday existence had to be manipulated as a form of oppression. In an ill represented history of the Dalits, the details of oppression have close associations with the material culture of the society that they were conditionally excluded from. These materials and objects have clues with which one can understand and deconstruct the system of oppression.
My work incorporates these banal objects that served as tools of oppression, to explore contemporary aspects of Dalit politics, like negotiation with one’s identity and the treatment and abuse of women of the Dalit community.
This work was exhibited as a part of LOOK, STRANGER | Serendipity 2019 Edition