FeminineFeminism

An installation of video projections or screens based on the research project “the true definition of feminism among women in the twentieth century”.

When I traveled to India after 3 years, I saw changes in my city Pune. With the economic progress in India, along with modernism and urbanism, financial statuses and attitudes changes had taken place. This kept me thinking whether this physical, structural change has shaped identities of woman in Pune? So I decided to use my laptop and the built in I-sight camera to record interviews with women. Initially I wanted to do an ethnographic research on women in Pune. However later looking at the enormity of the project, I decided to narrow it down to making a nonlinear documentary video installation on the topic " Confirmation of identity as a woman by workingwomen in Pune". I asked them questions like, how they see themselves as woman and if they asserted to being feminist? What feminism meant to them in this changing world?

Staying in Canada for 4 years and being in USA for 5 years, I have been struggling to confirm with the western radical and the third wave feminism. There has been a need to change the definitions of feminism in the western world to include the ethnic group’s values and ideals. In India most of the feminist theories are reflections of the western theories. This poses a lot of conflict with the ethnically, culturally and traditionally rooted Indian woman. Most of the women in India including myself cannot relate to the definitions and purpose of the western thoughts of feminism. Hence I set out to seek answers and find out opinions on feminism by contemporary women living in India to search myself in these women.

Apart from the need for changing definition of feminism, there is also a need for perspectives information dissemination. I am aware that in western society and art galleries, especially in Lethbridge, the media does not give a good picture of the psyche of women in India. What has always been reported about East Indian woman is that she is poor, suppressed and abused. This video installation is also an effort to bring forth the western world, the modern Indian Woman with her truest identity as an Indian woman nurturing her own Indian value systems.

On the technological level, firstly being an artist in New Media I was intrigued by the ready access of a camera mounted on the laptop, which could record live action footage. I didn’t need huge equipment or any crew to record opinions expressed by women. The I-sight camera thus became a medium for me to capture the moment of self-evaluation and questioning of the self-identity. All the women interviewed operated the start and stop button and they were free to erase, stop and repeat any part of their response. Thus empowering women to be in the controller position. Secondly I wanted to give the viewer an experience of being in the space where he/she completes the piece with his or her choices of linear or random listening and viewing of the content of the four videos presented to him or her simultaneously. It also questions the fact that media bombards a viewer with information, yet only a selective idea, word, image, audio cues, gestures is deciphered and retained by the human mind. Thirdly I am playing with the treatment of the documentary genre by playing with the linear and non-linearity of content, visuals and flow of the four videos. Keeping them separate yet uniting them together by the simultaneous presentation creating a completely new Documentary.

Detail description of the project:

Women born after 1960’s were interviewed about their beliefs, knowledge and confirmations of feminism. What feminism means to them? How do they assert themselves to the definition? What practices place them in this definition? Women were also asked about stories of their struggle to be the woman. What are their choices of attire to define themselves as a woman?

Technique- The artist used the I-sight and I-Movie to record the interviews. Women were operating the computer themselves and recording their opinions to a set of questions given to them. Meaning they record their own opinions and answers to the set of questions in a closed environment. Around 50 women were interviewed. Women were chosen across the age group and across Indian hierarchy in religion and cast. However the only common factor that tied all the women together was that they were all teachers or training to be teachers and communicators in Schools, Colleges and Universities.

The artist traveled to India and interviewed women in India.

The interviews were edited and compiled into a video. The video is an interactive video installation in a museum setting, where the viewer completes the piece with his or her linear/ random observation of the videos. Images of the interviews are artistically manipulated, however the audio is not manipulated in any way. The artist has tried to tie the interviews in sequence with her poetry performance based on the interviews.

Display: Four video projectors are used to project the four compiled videos on the fabric material. The four videos can be displayed on four TV monitors or four white walls.

For display four DVD players are needed, either four projectors or TV monitors are needed.