The Abortion Dialogues

A few days ago I was amazed to see posters for 'The Abortion Dialogues', showing in Kolkata. This is an installation by Anita Allyn and Colette Copeland, which provides space for people to tell their experiences of abortion. No pro-life or pro-choice polemic, just grassroots experiences to help understand, as opposed to moralise, the issues.

Lectures were provided on 'gender and techno-culture' and 'violence in feminist performance art', which provided a sometimes shocking but thought-provoking overview of how women have departed from traditional art forms to create testaments to struggle, express opinions, but always with a political, emancipatory purpose in mind. One particularly shocking and memorable example was an artist who underwent 20 plastic surgery operations, which were filmed and broadcast. She was apalled that an impossible standard is set and massive importance is put on female body image, such that people will pay huge amounts of money to make themselves better fit the ideal. So she gave herself the forehead of The Mona Lisa, the Eyes of Venus De Mylo, etc. etc.

I can't believe I found this sort of thing in India, such an overly conservative place. Brilliant.

Technorati Tags: art feminism social justice