From pivotal points in history such as the Mathura rape case of the 1970s to the Chipko Movement of the 1980s and the most recent Shaheen Bagh protests of 2020 in New Delhi, women have always been at the forefront of the socio-political cultural landscape of India. However, “women” can hardly be treated as a static gender as diversity is an exigent condition. So when curator and cultural theorist Nancy Adajania had the tall task of putting together an exhibition comprising "women" artists as a part of the centenary year of Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) Museum, she chose to include a multitude of voices in the form of “an inter-generational mapping of 27 women artists who have engaged with postcolonial India’s raging political and cultural problems,” that culminates into Woman Is As Woman Does, on till 16 October.
Spread across both the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation and the Premchand Roychand Gallery of the CSMVS Museum, the show also features contributions by activists and filmmakers, in addition to the 27. “I chose to begin this show with a significant moment in the Indian women’s movement, which was galvanised during the 1970s with the Mathura rape case, and gathered further momentum through successful protests for legal reform in the 1980s. Integral to the context of this exhibition is the Chipko Andolan and various initiatives to safeguard individual liberties. Women have been at the forefront of many of these movements and it is this sense of agency that I wish to emphasise through the title of my show–Woman Is As Woman Does, which includes the works of five generations of Indian women artists,” says Adajania.