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Portrait of a [Human] Female: Exhibition in Mumbai shows all parts that sum up feminine identity

A photography-and-video exhibition in Mumbai shows all the parts that sum up the feminine identity

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Finnish overweight photographer Iiu Susiraja, Wrestler Babita Phogat from Prarthana Singh’s The Wrestlers, an image from Austrian Mafalda Rakos’ I Want to Disappear, menstruating women confined to straw huts from Poulomi Basu’s A Ritual of Exile, Chinese woman from Luo Yang’s video-and-photograph series Girls
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Eating disorders, obesity, ageing, child marriage, divorce, menstruation and puberty rituals, irrational notions of beauty, glass-ceiling and outdated societal practices find a voice in ‘Photographing the Female’. This photography-and-video exhibition, part of the ongoing FOCUS photo festival in Mumbai is curated mainly by Sarah Høilund and involves 23 female photographers and two male ones from 17 countries. The visuals, mainly portraits and self-portraits of women, are taken in intimate settings that incite uneasiness and almost no joy. “Whether or not you are touched by the images, the fact that such harrowing things are being done to women, will disturb you,” says Høilund, who is from Denmark.

Motley of female voices

Høilund went looking for original stories that subvert the female narrative — Finnish overweight photographer Iiu Susiraja, whose 'Untitled' selfie series have her balancing brooms, hotdogs, stockings etc on her flabby body to poke fun at her obesity with the rest of the world. “I like how she turns the idea of being the muse on its head and becomes a subject to become a muse,” says Høilund, adding that there are women, including herself, who are unable to define what ‘femininity’ means to them. “Many women are ingrained to believe that being a woman means being a good wife. However, I’ve tried to keep the show inclusive where men and women alike can be part of the conversation,” she says, dismissing any extremist feminist underpinnings.

The exhibition opens a can of female-centric issues that contradict, converge or are in communion with one another: Austrian Mafalda Rakos’s 'I Want to Disappear' contains photographs that her subjects have taken to document their eating disorders — half-eaten meals, their anorexic reflections, a dress they’d want to fit into, scribbles charting weight-fluctuations and resulting hair loss. Denmark’s Natasha Penaguiao provides another angle on body image via her 'Babuska' series where she documents her own grandmother’s fragile, ageing body.

Poulomi Basu in her 'A Ritual of Exile' condemns the prevalant practice of Chaupadi in Nepal where menstruating women are confined to straw huts in secluded areas that leave them vulnerable to rape, attacks by wild animals, starvation and infection. Women metal-heads, in studded leather jackets, pants, hats and boots, defy the heavy metal scene in Botswana in South African photographer in Paul Shiakallis’s 'Leather Skins, Unchained Hearts'. Luo Yang’s Girls, a video-and-photograph series, is another middle finger to conservative stereotypes that show emerging Chinese youth as not hesitant to smoke or show their bodies. However, in her 'Becoming' series, Rania Matar asked pre-teen girls “to fall into their own poses” while she shot them on medium format film camera. The selfie-trained girls took the session seriously, knowing there was no digital liberty of a retake to perfect their stance. Then, there are images where biological women do not form the portrait. Like, South Africa’s Candance Feit 'A Woman in my Heart' documents kothis in both avatars — as men who could be transgender or bisexual with wife and kids, who dress up as women during Tamil Nadu’s Mayankollai festival.

Taking in such diversity can be a mouthful. It’s impossible to simply flit from one gritty series to another. But Høilund purposefully juxtaposes photographs of diverse cultural traditions to fuel an anthropological perspective to show how every society ties women down to arbitrary rituals. She feels that all these issues needed addressal even if they seemed chaotic when presented jointly. For instance, child marriage in India finds a cousin in Ecuador’s 'quinceanera' ceremony where the girl, who has just hit puberty, is presented to society as eligible to marry, as documented in Karla Gachet’s 'The Aguayo Girls' series. Then Tasneem Al Sultan’s 'Saudi Tales of Love' is about her divorce after marrying at 17 and experiences of other women from the Arabian plateau about a stereotypical Saudi wife.

While Høilund finds Denmark comparatively egalitarian where age to marry and choice of partner is one’s onus, everyone is expected to ultimately tie the knot. “My friends are settling down, having children, once in a while I get a little comment from my parents,” says the 29-year-old Høilund, who was made aware of her female identity after living in India and receiving extra attention for her blond hair.

While stitching together the multifarious display, Høilund kept tabs on her own process to avoid cliches like every story from India is about poverty. Hence, Prarthana Singh’s ‘The Wrestlers’ series about India’s female wrestlers who train for 11 months of the year with the sole agenda to earn medals for India.

Høilund intends to keep these narratives alive by exhibiting these photographs at women-centric events and building a website for photographers to upload images about female identity.

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