EXCLUSIVELY INCLUSIVE! An exhibition at Hyderabad

- Vishal Tondon

Here are details of the art show EXCLUSIVELY INCLUSIVE! held at the Anveshi Research Centre for Women's Studies, Hyderabad

Exclusively Inclusive!

Celebrating diversity through art

5^th - 11^th of October 2012

The art exhibition, ‘Exclusively Inclusive’, highlights the 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.

We decided to bring together for this groundbreaking show an international bouquet of artists.

The impetus of the curatorial effort is to push the philosophy of Wajood Society, which reads, “Exclusively Inclusive.” The word ‘Wajood’ literally means ‘Existence’. Ours is a community-based organization for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender) people as well as their friends, families and supporters. It is registered with the Office of the Registrar of Societies, Hyderabad. Soon after this art exhibition, we will also be spearheading a major LGBT pride parade at Hyderabad. This art exhibition is one of the pre-pride activities.

This show is one of the many ways in which we are working to sensitize various communities to diversity in the context of gender, sexuality and identity. Our objective also is to take art to academic as well as public spaces, so that the public at large can engage with it.

The exhibition reflects the spirit of Wajood as well as the philosophy of Anveshi; empowerment of minority groups rather than appeal on the basis of victimhood. Most of the artworks here are therefore self-affirmative and celebratory. Not all of the artists in this show identify themselves as queer. Rather, most of the artworks here 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 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.

We hope this show reaches out in ways so as to enable a better understanding and acceptance of minorities.

-       Vishal Tondon

        Curator

Artist Biographies

Jehangir Jani is a Mumbai based artist who has consistently tackled caste and class issues in the context of sexuality in his two decades long career. He has had solo shows at Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad (2012), Gallery Sumukha, Bangalore (2008), Gallery Espace, New Delhi (2006), Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai (2004), Gallery Chemould, Mumbai (2002), NGMA, Mumbai, 2000, and Fine Art Resource, Mumbai (1998). He has participated in major group shows including Iconography in Transient Times, India Habitat Center, New Delhi (2004), Ways of Resisting – 1992-2002, Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi (2002), The Pink Sun – Making an Entrance, NGMA, Mumbai (2000) and Artists Stamps – Independent India, SAHMAT, New Delhi (1997). He has participated in the Khoj International Workshop (2003) and has curated a show, Conversations, for The LOFT, Mumbai (2009). His short film Make Ups has been screened at Kashish Queer Film Festival, Mumbai (2010), the Uppsala Short Film Festival, Sweden (2005) and IAAC Film Festival, New York (2005).

Waswo X Waswo was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the U.S.A. He studied at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, The Milwaukee Center for Photography, and Studio Marangoni, The Centre for Contemporary Photography in Florence, Italy. His books, India Poems: The Photographs, published by Gallerie Publishers in 2006, and Men of Rajasthan, published by Serindia Contemporary in 2011, have been available worldwide. The artist has lived and travelled in India for over ten years and he has made his home in Udaipur, Rajasthan, for the past seven.  There he collaborates with a variety of local artists including the photo hand-colourist Rajesh Soni. He has also produced a series of autobiographical miniature paintings in collaboration with the artist R. Vijay.  Waswo is represented in India by Gallerie Espace, New Delhi and Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, and in Thailand by Serindia Gallery, Bangkok.

Qasim Riza Shaheen is a British artist based in Manchester with an international repertoire. His work has been presented at prominent venues and festivals throughout the United Kingdom, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the National Review of Live Art, Glasgow; the Liverpool Biennial; and British Dance Edition. Internationally, Shaheen’s work has been programmed as part of several film festivals; British Council’s showcases of Live Art in Denmark, Spain and Belgium; and at numerous art museums and galleries in Pakistan, India and in the USA. His art works have been acquired by museums and collectors internationally. His publications include Only the Moon to Play With (Arts Council England, 2004), Khusra: Stains & Stencils (Shisha, 2007), Liliquoi Blue: God Made Me a Boy (City Arts, 2010) and Nine Acts of Reciprocity (Anokha Laadla, 2010).

Elizabeth M Stephens & Annie M Sprinkle are two ecosexual artists-in-love who have been collaborating with each other, and with various international communities, for 11 years. They created a new field of research, “Sexecology,” exploring the places where sexology and ecology intersect in our culture– in art, theory, practice and activism. Their ecosex performance art weddings have involved thousands of collaborators and participants in eight countries. They also do Sexecological Walking Tours, visual art installations, and are finishing a film about mountain top removal coal mining destruction in Appalachia called Goodbye Gauley Mountain—An Ecosexual Love Story. Stephens is a professor of art at UCSC and a Ph.D. candidate in performance studies at UC Davis. Sprinkle is a popular visiting artist who holds a Ph.D. in human sexuality. They love to collaborate!

Manjari Chakravarti trained in printmaking at Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan. She has worked extensively in diverse media and has had solo shows at Galerie Beatrice Binoche, Saint-Denis, France (2011), Akar Prakar, Kolkata (2010), Art Alive, New Delhi (2008), Gandhara Art Gallery Kolkata (2007), Galerie 88, Calcutta (1999) and Art Heritage, New Delhi (1994). Her installation The Vanishing Wives of Santiniketan was shown at Enduring Legacy, Gallery Neumeister, Munich and Indian Embassy, Berlin in association with Akar Prakar, Kolkata and ICCR, and also at the India Art Summit 2011, New Delhi. She was awarded the Junior Fellowship for Outstanding Artists in the Field of Visual Arts, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Department of Culture, India, in 1996-98.  

Mithu Sen is one of the vibrant faces on the Indian contemporary art scene. An alumnus of Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, she has had solo exhibitions at Gallery Nature Morte and British Council, New Delhi (2006), Gallery Chemould, Mumbai (2006), Lakeeren Art Gallery, Mumbai (2003), Machintosh Gallery, Glasgow (2001) and Art India Style, New Delhi(2000). She won the Charles Wallace India Trust Award in the UK for 2000-2001 and was nominated for the Magna Young Achievers Award for 2003. She also won the 2010 Skoda Award for Indian contemporary art. Mithu lives and works in New Delhi. 

The show: