ON THE CUSP OF THE EIGHTH DAY summons the life and works of Aravanis, the transgender community in India, through the Aravani Art Project, a trans and cis women art collective based in India. Celebrating the 9 years of the collective’s art practice, since its inception in 2016, the exhibition presents canvases, photographs, mixed media works, testimonies and intersectional narratives that work towards bringing down systemic inequality faced by the Transgender Community through the medium of art as its vehicle, voice, tool and spirit.
From reclaiming public spaces through murals to raise awareness and visibility for the transgender folks and the larger LGBTQIA+ community in India, the collective, practicing in shared spaces of communes – from streets to flyovers and underpasses – now present their new body of work in a gallery space. These artworks present portraits of transgender women and their lived experiences – highlighting their ethos of joy and resilience. As bold vibrant colors, geometric patterns and motifs become forms of expression, art, in Aravani’s practice, lends itself to an activism that fortifies the survival and thriving of those who are marginalized. Becoming, in different ways, in the context of contemporary art in India in particular and the world in general – a historic moment that declares : Naavu Idhevi - We Exist!
The title of the exhibition finds its root in the story of Aravan’s sacrifice, the central deity of Aravanis. This sacrifice, which is necessary for the victory of Pandavas in the 18 day war of Kuruskshetra in the epic of Mahabharata, becomes a pivotal point for the transgender community to commune together in the month of Chaitra (April/May), and celebrate the 18 day Koovagam festival in Tamil Nadu. The festival holds a ceremonial marriage of Iravan to the people of the community and is followed by their widowhood after the ritual re-enactment of Iravan's heroic death on the eighth day of the war.
With this threshold on the eighth day of a war where a sacrifice is necessary for a new beginning, the curation puts forth different dualities at the stroke of midnight – binding the doubleness of how gender, gender identity, gender expression and sexuality is conceived, perceived and lived. Collapsing days and nights, individuals and communes, home and the world, cosmos and dreams that exist in the undergrounds and subcultures to crack open dreams and constellations that exist on streets, in homes, on mirrors and bodies, these dualities become guiding impulses for co-existence; ultimately provoking a fold in reflections, identities, and norms that entail the society.
In the confines of Gallery XXL, the Aravanis come with joy, resistance and pride to expand the meanings of desires into modes of survival; dilate the meanings of belonging with respect to chosen families; and shift the perception of work as it becomes synonymous with one’s body, with art, with living. Turning every expression into an unabashed way of being, the Aravani Art Project ultimately questions conventions that entail art – provoking an introspection of privilege as art slowly transforms, more and more, with every clap, into nuanced praxis as well as hyperlocal culture work.
