The exhibition Testimonies on Paper: Art and Poetry of South Asian Women bring together an array of works on paper by South Asian women artists from the Hundal Collection along with South Asian women poets, creating a space for alternative narratives of femininity and identity as the poets respond to the works exhibited.

The featured poets may be diasporic but are strongly rooted in the same South Asian ethos. They reshape geographic distance and reconfigure personal histories as they speak of anomie and freedom: “a woman / may give herself away, undiminished” (Mary Anne Mohanraj), “It is not about wearing (or not) a hijab or pullav, / but to lose one’s head entirely for the freedom to choose” (Ami Kaye), “corpses keep smouldering long after they turn into ash” (Bhaswati Ghosh), “Every beast has a belly / & all of us here were still animals, once-conjured contours of swollen / desire” (Nina Sudhakar). Moving fluently and fluidly through languages, these poems flag cultural icons: “a map without a legend / a durbeen missing an eye” (Shikha Malaviya), “semazens dance their dervish, untethered, their floor a smooth wasli” (Kashiana Singh).

Featured Poets: Dipika Mukherjee | Ami Kaye | Bhaswati Ghosh | Mary Anne Mohanraj | Nina Sudhakar | Kashiana Singh | Shikha Malaviya

This is a free event, registration is required.