Three murals across the city are the latest additions to a growing culture of initiating conversations around art. While a majority of the wall paintings are an amalgamation of popular culture and traditional aesthetics, the three new additions move beyond the purpose of beautifying the capital. They assert their presence and seek attention, besides delivering a strong message about the scourge of sex trafficking. And not just this, they also give visitors a chance to interact with them.
The three murals have claimed walls in — Middle Circle in Connaught Place, Malviya Nagar metro station and Block B in Vasant Kunj — and depict the horrifying ordeal of young girls caught in the ominous cycle of sex trafficking. These artistic representations are an outcome of a fruitful collaboration between The MISSING Public Art Project and Change.org to trigger conversations about the high demand for children in the sex industry using technology and art.
A visitor will meet “Pari’ in the Connaught Place. Against a yellow wall, the looming figure of a girl with scissors in her hands is likely to draw you attention. She is stoic. It appears she is about to take a drastic step, as the scissors indicate. But what that possibly could be? This is where the story unravels. The MISSING team has designed an interactive user interface that anyone can scan and have a conversation with, through the Facebook chatbot.
Hard-hitting narratives
“The project builds hard-hitting narratives on the current conversation around sexual violence in a patriarchal setting and invites viewers to talk to the artwork via the immersive experience of a chatbot. With the use of Facebook Messenger, users are not required to download another application for the interaction,” says Leena Kejriwal, founder, MISSING Public Art Project. “Here you will find about Pari and why she is using scissors.”
The mural at Malviya Nagar is rather hard hitting and direct. Accompanied by a sarcasm-laced line which reads –‘ Koi janbhoojkar toh rape nahi karta, yeh toh galti se ho jata hai’, the hands of a predator are painted in white against a black background. They slowly change their movement. Then the hands grasp an innocent girl in a tight grip. The silhouette of a girl, caught in the grip, is also a representation of many faceless girls who vanish from the earth, without leaving a trace. According to the National Crime Records Bureau report for 2016, 60 per cent of the total missing people were females — about 24 per cent of these were below 18 years, while 74 per cent were in the 18-60 years age group.
“The figures are startling. We are not realising it, but the fact is that trafficking is eroding the basic social fabric of our society,” says Kejriwal. “Also, we have to look at the issue from a wider prism. Trafficking is demand driven. And to meet demand, there is an increase in supply as well. In this case, the voyeuristic tendencies are being activated by the quick access to porn. Thus, we see a spiral increase in trafficking of young girls,” she says. “To rock this boat, it is very important to create awareness and this is why we use art and technology to engage public who are the biggest stakeholders in the issue to realise the role they play,” she adds.
An established photographer and installation artist, Kejriwal had been documenting the lives of the marginalised, but then she realised the need to use art as a tool to engage people on sex trafficking. This is how MISSING was launched at the 2014 India Art Fair. “When I first started working with NGOs like Hamari Muskan and New Light as an artist, I dealt with the issue by creating complicated installations within gallery spaces that brought up the dark realities of sex trafficking in a very graphic way. But this did not seem right. To create mass awareness, I realised I needed to distil the issue into a simple, engaging piece of art that spoke to everyone and transcended language and space,” she says.
But art can be a catalyst in educating only to a certain extent. Realising the limitations of the medium , Kejriwal had launched a gaming application in 2016. She used the power of technology to create a role-playing game designed to put players in the decision-making seat. “It gives them a subliminal experience of what a missing girl goes through. This endeavour has been quite successful, especially among youth, says Kejriwal.
In a way, if free and instant porn on the web accelerates the demand for prostitution, then Kejriwal has hit the nail in the head by using a gaming application to sensitise people. With the interactive chatbot and an online campaign #ChokeTheDemand as arsenals, the collaborative effort is a potent way to raise public awareness about trafficking.
