The original plan was to gather up all the mannequins, heavily laden with their hand-stickers, and bring them to the venue of the Public Forum on Street Sexual Harassment. It was to be a visually dramatic end to the 2016 Prajnya 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence.
The plans had to change. Life's like that.
But to see off the mannequins which had spoken so eloquently to us and all who saw them about the everyday trauma of being touched, groped, pinched, stroked without one's consent, without some ritual to acknowledge their message, seemed wrong. We could not possibly just bundle, strip and return them to their generous owners.
So we returned to something we love at Prajnya--poetry. We invited four poets (Sharanya Manivannan, Alamu Rathinasabapathy, Michelle Ann James and N. Santha) who are a part of our community to contemplate the mannequins and tell us what they heard and felt.
We sent them these photos. They were to write a poem they could read/perform for us in the presence of the mannequins.
The plans had to change. Life's like that.
But to see off the mannequins which had spoken so eloquently to us and all who saw them about the everyday trauma of being touched, groped, pinched, stroked without one's consent, without some ritual to acknowledge their message, seemed wrong. We could not possibly just bundle, strip and return them to their generous owners.
So we returned to something we love at Prajnya--poetry. We invited four poets (Sharanya Manivannan, Alamu Rathinasabapathy, Michelle Ann James and N. Santha) who are a part of our community to contemplate the mannequins and tell us what they heard and felt.
We sent them these photos. They were to write a poem they could read/perform for us in the presence of the mannequins.
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