Excavation of Feminine Memories

Allied Event of DIALOGUES – Annual Calcutta Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Film & Video Festival 2009 presented by Sappho for Equality & Pratyay Gender Trust

An Exhibition “Excavation of Feminine Memories” (12th -14th June at Max Mueller Bhavan, Kolkata) on imageries of Homo-erotic Love in Ancient Indian Tradition by Giti Thadani in partnership with Sappho for Equality and Pratyay Gender Trust.

Giti Thadani, a radical lesbian activist, visual artist, photographer and a Delhi-based independent researcher, is excavating the concealed tapestry of feminine kinship, genealogy and sexual or erotic bonding between women in ancient Indian traditions. She traveled across the country over the last 25 years and photographed temples and images of the goddess. 20 of those images are the part of this exhibition. The exhibition presentation is a poetic photographic journey into the archetypal philosophies and cosmologies of the Shaktic feminine through a dramatic interplay of visuals depicting same–sex erotica. She says, “Homosexuality is very much part and parcel of Indic histories. In fact there were many celebratory traditions that celebrated it. There is ample iconography and textual material to prove this. What however is important is that these histories have been ignored, ravaged by different monotheistic invasions. Further these histories have for the most part been written from a completely heterosexual point of view – whether coming from the hindutva, orientalist or even what poses as the ‘secular’ academic. In effect the technique of othering homosexuality as ‘western’ is not unique to India. Most patriarchal cultures will invisibilize their own homosexual traditions and then blame it on the ‘other’.

On Friday, June 12, 2009 [3.00PM – 3.30PM]: Inauguration of Exhibition “Excavation of Feminine Memories”