(out)side/in
Digital Collages by Sangeetha Alwar
The female form has had a troubled relationship with history, culture, politics, art, and life. It has been contested, ostracised, and exoticised to the point of no return. De Beauvoir’s words, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” echoes through history and seeps into the lived experience of our everyday life. It no longer is about existing as a person but rather about inhabiting a female body. This body exists and at the same time contests its existence – it’s a constant struggle to negotiate between identities, assumed and imposed. There is no concept of home anymore; spaces are no longer safe. Even the skin one is born within, leaving one in a permanent state of itinerance.
These collages attempt to highlight the increasingly porous nature of the relationship between the public and the private of the female body and how one always feels as if one is the outside, looking in.
