This city woman has won an award for once again making a difference to countless girls
Jasmeen Patheja
There’s rarely a day when you don’t wake up to a story of rape, harassment or violence. This general feeling of fear, threat, defense and a lack of community to share experiences of street sexual harassment is what led Jasmeen Patheja to start Blank Noise. This artistic community to eradicate gender based violence started as her graduation project, but has now gained momentum as a nationwide movement. As part of this, her public art project called Talk to Me, received the International Award for Public Art last month at the Cities in a Climate of Change: Public Art and Environmental and Social Ecologies conference in Auckland, New Zealand.
“It came as a surprise to all of us at Blank Noise,” says the 35-year-old who received this recognition in public art practice. “The fact that it resonated with so many people across the world shows that perhaps, building empathy is urgent,” she says. The project made use of over 17 student volunteers or ‘Action Heroes’ who mapped an unsafe site in their locality (in this case, Yelahanka), set up tables and chairs and engaged in a conversation with a stranger over tea for over an hour. “They kept referring to a stretch near the campus as the Rapist Lane,” says Jasmeen about the area that was void of street lights, had no commercial activity, had rows of empty buses parked during the day and was used as a stretch to drink after dark. “We pledged to call it the Safest Lane instead,” says the alumnus of Srishti Institute of Art Design and Technology, who incidentally facilitated this project as a workshop for students of her almamater.
The Cities in a Climate of Change conference at which this project bagged the prestigious prize brings together artists, curators, urban planners, architects and museum directors from around the world to discuss art and its relationship to urban development. “It further brought the volunteers to deal with fear, confront discomfort, and unlearn fear while building on familiarity,” says Jasmeen, a fine arts student, for whose parents her career in the arts was initially not a popular choice. “Now they are very supportive,” smiles the lady whose other interests include feminist art practice, community and public art.
In answer to the age old blame game that a rape victim attracts attention by what she’s wearing for instance, Jasmeen is now underway with the I Never Ask For It campaign. “It examines, explores and arrests the ways in which victim blame manifests – something that justifies and perpetuates sexual violence,” she says about the campaign that builds testimonials of clothing – pictures that victims wore when they experienced any form of sexual threat, violence or intimidation. Jasmeen also finds time to unwind – occasionally walking, hanging out with her grandmother or cooking untitled meals.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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