The Activists of Liberation

A Critically Acclaimed life, commended for its fierce nuances, murky values and photographic temperaments. A life that holds its ground among a storm of ideas, one which acts the way it believes it should despite a gathering of conventions. We as humans are living as much in the deep narrow trenches of our thoughts or wide free fields of ideas as we want to; we can be victims of narrow mindedness or bastions of a free, equal and unburdened army.

The Partition Museum in Amritsar and the Heritage Lab bring together an event delving into narratives of woman personalities during the Independence and Partition of India. ‘Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon’ aims to expand the existing pages and create new pages revolving around famous women during the avantgarde period of trial, rebellions and triumph in India.

The event will examine and include expanding Wikipedia pages linked to events that occurred during the Partition and Post-Independence period which impacted the lives of many women across the subcontinent.

The Partition Museum was established as a People’s Museum, depicting Partition as it was experienced by the People. It is a collection of histories, narratives of the past and artefacts collected or brought across by people during Partition.

Taking forward the voices of unity and parity, encouraged by words like “Art is rebellious. Art demands freedom. Art empowers,” and bringing empowered and liberated voices together, Shakti Shalini (an NGO) in collaboration with Studio 81 presents a ‘Women’s Day Celebration’ on the 20th and 21st of March in Delhi, a weekend of art and performance led by women and children residing at the Pehchan Shelter Home for Women in Distress, and women and children from marginalised communities supported by Shakti Shalini.

The event brings alive Shakti Shalini’s project “Artivism, Art for Activism.” Artivism enables and encourages to use art as mediums of expression, healing, conversation, social change and developing one’s voice through creative arts. Theatre, dance, poetry, music and visual art exhibits and projects are part of this two-day event which also encourages upcoming socially conscious artists across the city of Delhi to engage in a range of creative activities at the event and push forth efforts of gender equality and egalitarianism.

An enlightening meetup or series of meetups titled ‘Feminist Futures’ is a curated space by One Future Collective that aims to engage participants in critical inquiry and igniting dialogue on pressing issues of our time with the aim of bringing behavioural shifts. The meetups are in-person spaces for conversation on various themes like intersections between identity and violence, body positivity, neutrality and many more.

A life, that of a man or a woman, is often talked about only when it falters or it succeeds and never when it is in the middle, somewhere stuck between the phenomenal, almost great and the mighty fall. So this is to all the places I don’t know, all the words I haven’t read, all the people I’ve not seen, all the strangers I’ve met in my dreams, to all the people who shouldn’t have died and strangers who shouldn’t have cried, to empty days and scary thoughts, to an endless nervous breakdown, to all the anxieties that creep in my mind, to all the love I’d ever receive, to all the gratitude and all the hate, to all the pain and my decaying fate, I have just been a human being and so have you, let the burden of being too much and too little cease, let us all stare at blank ceilings at night, all women or men or gentle leaves, with no tragedies and failures, and sorrows, let the stare be kind, let the stare be childlike – naïve and free.

Events

Art + Feminism Edit-a-Thon, by The Partition Museum and the Heritage Lab, on 21st March at E-1, 2ND floor, Green Park Extension, New Delhi, 10.30 am to 5.30pm

Women’s Day Event by Shakti Shalini in Collaboration with Studio 81

- Day One: 20th March, 2pm to 5pm Kushalta Vikas Kendra, Shakti Shalini, Block 10, Nehru Nagar, New Delhi

- Day Two: 21st March, 6pm to 8pm Studio 81, Sector A Pocket C, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi

Feminist Futures Delhi #2 by One Future Collective at 91Springboard, E-3, Jhansi Road, Jhandelwan Extension, New Delhi, on 22nd March at 11am