Jehangir Jani's 'Urmi' Wins at Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, 2013

Jehangir Jani's 'Urmi', a film on transgenders, bagged the Best Indian Short Narrative film award at Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival this year. Vishal Tondon interviews Jani on the experience of making and sharing this film. 

VT: What was your reaction to the news of 'Urmi' having won at the Kashish film festival?

JJ: It felt great. I was happy that my fellowship from TISS under their Urban Aspirations in Global Cities collaborative program with PUKAR and the Max Planck Institute of Germany was validated.

VT: How did the project take off? Who were your collaborators on the project?
JJ: While the subject was ever present in my head, the fellowship kick-started the film. All my friends and well wishers were collaborators because they all contributed their talent, resources as well as inputs.

VT: There are quite a few LGBT film festivals and pride parades happening now across the country. Do you think the LGBT scene has arrived?

JJ: It is heartening that such changes are becoming part of the cultural calendars. However, we still have a long way to go before we can say that the LGBT scene has arrived.

VT: Please tell us about the character Urmi. How did you come to conceptualize her?

JJ: Urmi is very sure as to who she is. It is only when she has to deal with the outside that she becomes anxious or vulnerable. She resists being defined by her birth or biology or physiology. Overarching is her dignity which makes her character empowering.

VT: The film complicates issues of gender and sexuality. It also makes no clear distinction between sexual desire and love. There are a lot of ambiguities about the character. Is this deliberate?

JJ: While sex is intrinsic to gender identity, it is not necessary to be sexual to be of a particular gender. There are a plethora of dimensions within desire like behaviour, thought process, culture, domesticity, etc., which make for a composite identity. I feel it is facetious to classify people in the narrow frame of sex. I find a more enriching reading of gender identity when it is seen as a spectrum.

VT: The film also questions the issue of loss of identity. Would you please tell us more about this?

JJ: I see Urmi as self gendered where she retains her privilege to be female as well as feel or masquerade as a male. Therefore she is a transgressor who defies definition. In a sense she loses one identity, but is not in a rush to assume another.

VT: There is a scene towards the end of the movie, where Urmi and her friends are seated behind a longish table; it reminds us of The Last Supper. Can you please enlighten us about the significance of this scene?

JJ: I have studied in a Christian school and its preachings and iconography are ingrained into my consciousness. The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci is also a signature art work. While it talks of a last rite of passage to Jesus’s life as a human being, and presages lament, I have shown Urmi as a survivor and the party being first rite of passage to a choice of existence.

VT: Can you please tell us more about the style of the film ‘Urmi’? It is clearly different in its treatment from your earlier film, ‘Make Ups’.

JJ: Both the films dealt with lives of people in cities. While Make Ups was brooding and languid in its unfolding with a restrained finale, Urmi has an upward pitch from start to finish. The celebration in Make Ups is internal to the characters but Urmi is out and assertive in the world.

VT: Some people think gay activism is overshadowing the efforts of the other groups such as lesbians and the transgendered. In that light, it is interesting that you and some other film directors should focus on depicting the subjective experience of transgendered characters…

JJ: This may have been the case before the internet and other media were not so ubiquitous. I don’t think one struggle dominates another anymore. Maybe gay people are more vociferous and therefore highly visible. I am sure the others are equally active. Anyways, we all have our femininity to speak for and so the transgender character arises from a self desire, sometimes like a schizophrenia.

VT: Personal to you, what is the message you wish to give to people who watch 'Urmi'?  

JJ: Watch it and love it.

 

Copyright: Vishal Tondon and Jehangir Jani, 2013. No part of this interview may be published without written permission of the copyright owners.

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:

 

'Jannis - A Relook' by Jehangir Jani

- Vishal Tondon

Tree of Knowledge. 2012

Jehangir Jani is known in his circle as a multi-talented artist. He has worked in quite a few artistic mediums including sculpture, installations, painting and film. Though he is well known as an accomplished sculptor, his project with the delicate medium of watercolour has been to examine the result of translating tangible objects into a fragile form. For some time now, he has been exploring the possibilities of this very soft yet difficult medium. To Jani’s credit, he has been able to convey, through the flimsy yet willful medium of watercolour subjects that are tough and would otherwise have required the tenacity either of sculpture or oil paint. His new suite of paintings, ‘Jannis – A Relook’, are on view at Kalakriti Art Gallery. These paintings deal with the materiality of objects, rendered in the elusive medium of watercolour.

Jani’s new work exposes the difficult relationship passion and knowledge share. The tortured relationship between the two has been grist for the mill for ages; whole canons of religions, myth and policies have been built around the love-hate equation between passion and knowledge. The philosopher Foucault has mentioned how knowledge is built and sustained through the exclusion and suppression of alternate voices. We see a similar opinion being echoed in Jani’s new work. His new painting speaks of the violence and the use of an iron fist that go into the building of knowledge, including the canon of science which is apparently the foundation of modern thought and society. Jani’s suite of exquisite watercolours sullied with smudged charcoal blotches comment on the parasitic dependence of high knowledge on the blood and the sweat of the common man, the other and the minority, which are all declared as disposable after use. 

High knowledge serves mainly to define and protect the interests only of a powerful few. It adapts and appropriates material from the minor and alternate discourses, which it posits as its own. There is no knowledge other than mainstream knowledge. The engagement of the mainstream discourse with the minor only serves to complete and validate the mainstream. 

Van Gogh, who had earlier equated art with manual labour, questioned hierarchies in Art at the dawn of Modernism. His paintings are like the musings of a Christ for the modern world; “The poor shall inherit the earth.”  His work anticipates the attitude of the art movement of Arte Povera that was to manifest itself in Italy in the 1960s, the latter an outcome of the crisis of Modernity. Two prominent artists of the movement that was Arte Povera, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Jannis Kounellis worked to break down the hierarchies of "Art" and common things. The use of impoverished materials is certainly one aspect of the definition of Arte Povera. It is the interest in underprivileged materials in the work of Kounellis that has moved Jani the most. His recent paintings take off from the works of Jannis Kounellis and Jani invests in the configurations Kounellis suggested the hint of the transgressing desire.

This component of desire enters Jani’s suite of paintings with elements such as sheer slip of cloth and bitten scarlet apples. In these paintings we can see Jani’s quest as a sculptor; the juxtaposition of the fragile and the tough continues to excite him as an artist.  

The apples are of peculiar interest here. They might not be golden, but they do stand for the apple of discord. Also, they stand for knowledge, as is clearly indicated by the title of one of the paintings, ‘The Tree of Knowledge.’ Bitten apples in this suite of paintings recall death by poisoning, as in the story ‘Snow White.’ Bitten apples also recall death by poisoning of Alan Turing, the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. Finally, they recall the original sin and the fall of man. As it turns out in all the three above mentioned cases, mortality was hastened by an unpardonable attribute in each of the protagonist involved; respectively, unique beauty, transgressing desire, and free will.    

Interestingly, the bitten apple as an icon has also been immortalized by Steve Jobs in his company’s logo.

The knowledge of our times is defined by artificial intelligence and scientific information. One would presume that such advances are made possible by the judicious application of rationality and fairness. Recent history proves otherwise. Turing’s suicide by poisoning evidently was brought on by his dissatisfaction at having to live life according to the dictates of the dominant discourse. His contributions to knowledge and human experience could not compensate for his sexual desire for another male, a non-conformism. His death exposes the underbelly of the hegemonic system that built the knowledge of our times. It also is symptomatic of the grimy side of affairs that is the other face of human progress.

Jehangir Jani’s new series, ‘Jannis – A Relook’ revisits, all at once, a complex array of histories relating to sexuality, culture and scientific knowledge. The war between knowledge and passion is a dirty one; each feeding off even while it enriches the other. Jani’s recent work comes at the right time; we have been wondering for some time now about who the real beneficiaries of knowledge are and to what extent free will is possible in an age that boasts of rights to knowledge and communication that are apparently universal and freely available.