Sheba Chhachhi has been a leading chronicler and participant in the women’s rights movement in India for decades. She believes that Indian women who deviate from conservative cultural norms are facing an unprecedented level of violence against them.
She is a Delhi-based artist whose lens based works investigate gender, the city, cultural memory and eco-philosophy, often drawing on pre-modern myth and iconography. She began as an activist and photographer, documenting the women’s movement in India, moving on to immersive multimedia installations in both site-specific public art and independent works. Chhachhi’s works are held in significant public and private collections, including Tate Modern (London), Kiran Nadar Museum (Delhi), BosePacia (New York), Singapore Art Museum and National Gallery of Modern Art (Delhi). A major publication on her work was published in 2016, edited by Kumkum Sangari and entitled ARC Silt Dive: The Works of Sheba Chhachhi (Tulika Delhi).
Since its inception, Sheba Chhachhi has been an important associate of the HERA SINGLE project (2013-16), whose project leader was Prof. Christiane Brosius, with Dr. des Laila Abu-Er-Rub as coordinator and postdoc-researcher. In June 2016, she was a visiting fellow at the Cluster/HERA project. Sheba participated and contributed to the annual conferences organized by the SINGLE Team and contributed to the closing event in an especially curated exhibition at the Museum of Anthropology, Leiden. For this, she also created the short film “Moving the City #1.
Read more in the interview with Sheba Chhachhi.
Picutres:
Nr. 1: Photographer and installation artist Sheba Chhachhi won the Thun Prize for her commitment to women's rights and environmental awareness | © Patric Spahni
Nr. 2 The number of reported crimes against Indian women has more than doubled between 2005 and 2015 | © Keystone