Women or Objects?

Bikalpa’s First Project:

Women or Object?

Bikalpa started with the aim to start a dialogue on current much-needed topics such as violence against women, through art, while promoting Nepal’s small-scale contemporary art scene.  Following this dream of the founders of Bikalpa, as one of the first projects, artists from Bikalpa Art Centre supported the “Occupy Baluwatar Movement” with the project “Women or Object?”. The Occupy Baluwatar Movement was a peaceful protest, calling for the Nepali state to better address the widespread problem of impunity and gender-based violence. 

On the 50th day of the protest, performance artist, Mahima Singh collaborated with the team from Youth Safe and performed the piece, “Women or Objects?” in Kathmandu’s different locations, starting from the street in front of the Prime Minister's Residence, Baluwatar, moving with the procession of some three thousand audiences towards King’s Way and concluded at the Rani Pokhari. The five artists, Mahima Singh (lead), Dikshya Shah, Anusha Sapkota, Kabita Rai, and Snaju Pariyar, performed this community piece, amidst a crowd of around 3000 people.

Covered in bronze, portraying a bronze statue, representing that the majority of society sees women as a mere object, with no feelings. Inspired by the rape cases of women in Delhi and Nepal at the time, this act tells a story of the women being blamed and deemed as the provokers for men, to commit assault on them. It showed that even in day-to-day life, society has reduced the role of women, to be a feeling-less object, owned for the sole purpose of providing for men. Through this piece, the artist hopes that through this performance society will want women to be more than living statues and requests the community to treat women as humans and not as emotionless objects, requesting the public to give women the due respect and provide them with equal rights, and dignity as their male counterparts.