For most of history, Anonymous was a woman’ is an iconic rephrasing of Virginia Woolf’s words. This statement is undeniable because a sneak into history tells us that women wrote or created art in secrecy, their voices muffled by the norms of a patriarchal society.
When these standards were shattered and women claimed their words and created a world of their own, freedom was still a far-fetched concept. They were expected to fit within the confines of what was ‘acceptable’— to please, to pacify, to moralise. Their creativity was filtered through the lens of societal expectations. A classic example is Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868), where the author was persuaded to give a ‘lived happily ever after’ end to the story that was hers to tell.
Over time, the fight took on new forms — not just protest, but presence. Women began claiming spaces. The fight is still on to expand what stories women are allowed to tell, and how they are heard. Because in today’s digital age, when everything is a click away, female artistes still lack recognition.
To bring that recognition, document the work, the stories, and the legacy of three artistes — Seethalakshmi, Usha Rani, and Narthaki Nataraj — Goethe Institut, the Kala collective, a team of photographers, videographers, and editors, and Shreya Nagarajan Singh, an art development consultancy, have come up with an exhibition. Titled ‘The Female Legacy Project’, this display is a four-month-long hard work put in by four creators — writer Saritha Rao, illustrator Sahitya Rani, photographer and videographer Bhuvana Sekar and Habiba Begum.
Legacy and limelight
The Internet takes you nowhere if you search for Usha Rani, a theatre artiste. With roots from Andhra but settled in Tamil Nadu, Usha cannot read or write. This did not hinder her ambition to become an actor. She gets into the skin of any character within seconds. “She asks people around her to narrate scenes, and then she would memorise the dialogues. She observes their expressions while reading. How are they acting out? How do they emphasise certain words? And then she performs,” explains Habiba Begum, a lens-based artiste.
Then there is Seethalakshmi, a shadow puppetry artiste. She brought a revolution in performing the art form. She records her shows and has taken the theatrical art to international museums. “There is nothing about her on the Internet. But the minute we entered her house, we could see walls full of photos and framed awards. It’s an archive. It’s material that has just not been seen by the outside world,” notes Habiba.
Another performer, Narthaki Nataraj, a Bharatanatyam artiste, is a Padma Shri recipient. Habiba says, “Her journey is testimony to what she’s doing. This trans woman from Madurai came out along with her friend, Shakti. They continue as dancers now. It’s just the support they have had, highlighting the women that each of them has in their life.”
In this specific project, we wanted to highlight the fact that women are written less about, there are fewer texts, there are less newspaper articles. For them, this means it is harder to build a legacy. They are more often forgotten even if they did something great in their art form.
Katharina Goergen, director of the Goethe-Institut
More than a setting
The creators interviewed the artistes individually to get their stories and display them at an art show. “It is kind of their (creators’) individual depiction of the life story, to honour these three female artistes,” says Katharina Goergen, director of the Goethe-Institut. Each of the three artistes’ lives is documented in a short film accompanied by beautiful portraits. She adds, “The illustrator has made original illustrations depicting parts of the life story, and the author has written the text to bring all of thse together.”
At its heart, the installations are lived experiences — of perseverance, resistance, and a quiet, enduring strength. Writer Saritha Rao shares, “It is not about my words. It’s about their stories — the stories of the three women we’re featuring.” Writing for this project was similar to composing a biography. She says, “The words had to be efficient, but at the same time, they had to convey the highlights of the subject we are writing about.” When capturing an artiste’s performance, she often chose to dig deeper, seeking out the performance’s cultural context rather than simply stating what was done.
Dared to create
According to Saritha, female artistes are like thread, which is also the crux of the exhibition. “You do not notice each strand of threads woven into a dress. But once you start noticing it, you will start noticing it more. Similarly, as a writer, I have written a lot, but once I started working with female artistes and a team full of creative women, the next I would really like to write more about women artistes. There are a lot of similarities in our lives and lived experiences.”
Mostly, you would see them on centre stage, relate to and admire the work they do. “You see the performance side of them. But when you go behind the stage, behind the scenes of them just talking about their stories and experiences, the space shifts to a place where they are vulnerable and just sharing,” says Habiba.
She goes on to add that in the journey of success, many pairs of hands lift her. “That is what is so beautiful about these three artistes — they have all had that community or those people who have always had their backs and pushed them for opportunities that have made their life and their legacy what it is,” she says.
Art is a medium of communication, and women add different angles and layers of life experiences to it. This exhibition documents a legacy of such different perspectives and creates new ones for future generations.
Learn the legacies
Inaugurated on Friday, the exhibition has a guided tour from today till April 13, from 10 am to 7 pm. Special tours in the Bharatanatyam language will be held today and tomorrow and April 12 and 13 at 5 pm.