Art activism lends a voice to transgenders

The aim is to bring them into the mainstream

June 15, 2017 08:20 pm | Updated 08:20 pm IST

The painting on Dhanvantri Road near Majestic in Bengaluru.

The painting on Dhanvantri Road near Majestic in Bengaluru.

As pedestrians walk along Dhanvantri Road near Majestic, they are greeted by a smorgasbord of extravagant colours smeared across the pavement walls. They are part of a massive mural of a transgender surrounded by flowers. Her eyes seem to stare into the passer-by’s soul and scream ‘naavu iddeve’ (we too exist).

The mural, which was created in October 2016, is not a one-off attempt to bring the transgender community into the mainstream through the arts.

Over the last year, Bengaluru has experienced a significant rise in performing and visual artists who are blurring the lines between art and activism to illustrate, articulate and celebrate the transgender community.

Twenty-one-year-old radio jockey Shilok Mukkati believes that activism through art divorces it from an authoritarian perspective. “Art is something through which it is easy to reach out to people. In India, the culture of entertainment has always been storytelling or performing arts. So the usage of this platform to share with the people our stories, to educate people about our gender and sexuality generates a great response,” says the transgender poet as she prepares for a gender-themed performance of ‘Two Sanskaari Girls’ on July 7 at Shoonya Centre for Arts and Somatic Practices on Lalbagh Main Road.

The Dhanvantri Road mural is part of a larger initiative, the Aravani Art Project, where artists from the city come together with transgender artists to create street art. They paint portraits, motifs of nature, abstract patterns in bright and vivid colours. They also leave behind messages that they want to convey to the society, such as ‘naavu iddeve’, ‘for the love of equality’ and ‘meri ID meri pehchaan’ .

Poornima Sukumar (27), who founded Aravani Art Project in 2016, realised that though conversation around transgender activism is ample, people are still not okay with their inclusion into society. “I essentially work with members of the transgender community who do not have a voice. They come from really low economic conditions and are trying to make themselves heard through art. As the project spread to Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and other cities, I realised that even the communities within India are culturally different. We analyse these differences. We paint according to the milieu of a region keeping in mind what message people from there would want to convey to the public,” she said.

She believes that millennials are more conducive to the idea of being different. Hence, conversations around transgenders in particular and queer people in general are on the rise.

But there’s always the danger of stereotyping this complex and multi-layered facet of gender. “Mainstream television and films portray transgenders in ridiculous ways,” says Akkai Padmashali, a transgender and co-founder of ‘Ondede: Dignity, Voice, Sexuality’, which works to create a space for dialogue and support. She states, “The portrayal is not sensitive to the amount of discrimination we face. They need to be more transgender friendly”.

Akkai believes that theatre plays an important role in bringing this discussion to the fore. “Theatre offers a more intimate medium between the actors and the audience,” she says citing the example of Baduku bayalu: hijira obbala atmakathe, a skit performed by her organisation for the Karnataka government’s policy discussion meeting.

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