Below, you will find illustrations and photographs of how Southasian artists want women to be depicted and how they have conceptualised themes of healing, community, autonomy and justice beyond the standard imagery of victimisation.
All are welcome to use the images below in their reporting; we hope that this image bank continues to grow organically as we continue to work with more artists and photographers throughout the region. The images here can be reproduced free of cost, but credit to the artists is mandatory. Please contact us for further details. For use of the images and to download a high-res copy, please email contact.hrisouthasian@gmail.com.
We would like to thank the following artists for their contribution Alina Chhantel, Sheelesha Rajbhandari, Shaili Malla, Prakash Ranjit, Pallavi Payal, Sapana Sanjeevani, Sara Tunich Koinch, Laxmi Tamang, Mrigaja Bajracharya, and Priyanka Maharjan.
[The image bank is an outcome of the project ‘Challenging Visual Depiction of Women and Sexual Violence in Southasia’ coordinated by Laxmi Murthy, Director and Pawas Manandhar, Program Manager, Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange, an initiative of The Southasia Trust, Kathmandu.]
Here, you can also find photographs from Sana Amir, multimedia and documentation fellow at The South Asia Trust. Her photographs of women challenge the problematic depiction of women in images that often accompany reports of sexual violence. She reframes the way women are depicted between the extremes of victimhood and agency.
Sana Amir is a multimedia journalist, documentary filmmaker and media researcher based in Delhi. She is passionate about visual storytelling and new media formats. Her research interests are politics, religion, gender, and identity. She has produced multimedia projects for Himal Southasian, International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ), Live Mint – Hindustan Times, Dainik Jagran, Oxfam India, The Wire and The Indian Express.
Imagery and illustrations accompanying reports of sexual abuse and rape in Southasia continue to regurgitate the same themes of victimisation and a lack of agency of women victim-survivors. Conversely, as criticism for this kind of portrayal gained momentum in the past couple of decades, the pendulum seems to have has swung to the other side with images of women in protests, rallies, or on the streets, demonstrating their strength, shouting slogans and/or demanding change. While these kind of images and photographs aren’t as problematic as the ones before them, they continue to portray and place women and their fight against sexual violence as only conceputalised within two stereotypical themes: the oppressed or the powerful, the voiceless or the vocal, the meek victim or the strong survivor. There is no place for the grey, the complex, the sometimes contradictory and often times messy topic of sexual violence and justice seeking.
Through the project, we have tried to explore the nuances that exist in between these two stereotypical extremes. Over the past year, the Hri Institute has collaborated with Nepali and Indian illustrators, artists, filmmakers and photographers to conceptualise alternative themes and depictions of sexual violence and violence against women that challenges the prevalent problematic imagery. We also attempt to explore the many complex layers of how survivors come to terms with sexual violence. Organically, over a few months, themes of care, healing, community, agency and autonomy became clear with the works of the artists that we engaged.
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