Aravani Art Project’s first solo show is about resistance

The exhibition at Mumbai’s Gallery XXL by the trans and cis women-led art collective celebrates their nine year journey of reclaiming public places

Almost a decade ago, a group of transwomen painted a mural in Bengaluru’s bustling K.R Market, beginning their journey of talking about inclusivity and equality through art. Today, their artworks are displayed in their first solo exhibition in Mumbai, celebrating identity and resistance.

The ongoing exhibition, On the Cusp of the Eighth Day, at Mumbai’s Gallery XXL showcases the life and works of about 13 transwomen from the Aravani Art Project, a trans and cis women-led art collective. It also celebrates the nine-year anniversary of the project’s work towards challenging social stigma, discrimination, and systematic inequality faced by the transgender community by utilising public art.

Opening last month with a panel discussion, performances, walkthroughs and painting workshop, the exhibition has carved out space for the voice of transwomen. “We didn’t set out to drastically change people’s perspective through the exhibition but rather wanted to make people curious about the transgender community,” says Poornima Sukumar, founder of the Aravani Art Project, which now has 35 members across India.

For the artists and Sukumar, the idea was to include lesser-known cultural aspects of the transgender community such as their relationship with mythology. For instance, in the Constellation series, four paintings focus on important mythology-based dates for the transgender community and the festivals they celebrate.

“People are usually not aware of the various cultural differences that exist within the community. They often assume that the trans community, in general, follows just one belief, which is not true. There are different communities and they celebrate different festivals,” says Sukumar, adding that many of these trans-related festivals are disappearing, and lack visual documentation.

In this series, the paintings feature embroidery and acrylic on canvas and depict four festivals that are relevant to the trans community and the particular constellations when they take place. While the Bonalu festival is popular among the transgender community in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Odisha, the Yellamma festival is celebrated in Karnataka as well as Telangana.

The idea and the name for the Aravani Art Project also came from a festival, specifically, the 18-day Koovagam festival in Tamil Nadu celebrated by the transgender people of the region, Aravanis, who Sukumar set out to document back in 2013. The exhibition’s title is also rooted in the story of Aravan’s sacrifice, the central deity of Aravanis, on the eighth day of the Kurukshetra battle depicted in the Hindu mythology, Mahabharata. This sacrifice is commemorated during the Koovagam festival..