New Delhi   

A visual history of women's movement

Mandira Nayar

"POSTER WOMAN'': One of the posters at the exhibition.

NEW DELHI: This is the rather "sticky" story of women in the past 35 years. Posters pasted with gum on walls might not be the stuff that history is made of, but these brightly coloured and often carefully drawn posters are. Representing a visual history of women's movement in India, Zubaan, a publishing house, is giving people a room full of posters of what women want.

Titled "Poster Women'', this is really the first time that such an exhibition has ever been mounted. Being ephemeral, the posters are usually the first to be trashed even though they are very integral to the battles that women have fought against."It was a mammoth task to put together. We had to network with 200 groups from all across the country, so the sheer magnitude of the task was huge,' says Jaya Bhattarcharji, an editor with Zubaan.

From hand-made posters using newspapers to the sophisticated glossy printed posters that are in vogue now, "Poster Women'' span 35 years of history of women. A collection of the visual expression of the milestones in the women's movement, the exhibition has managed to preserve passion activists felt on paper.

"Posters are an integral part of the movement. They make excellent resource material and are a visual history of the women's movement. The earlier posters were drawn on chart-paper and sometimes even newspapers as you had to use whatever you got access to,'' adds Jaya.

Starting from the turbulent and idealistic 1970s, the exhibition literally guides the viewer through the changing gender world. The decade that was marked with the desire to change India saw the birth of many feminist organisations. There is a lot of written material to document the period, but not very many posters survive.

Having gone on a paper trail, Zubaan has tried to piece together the campaigns through the years on posters and pamphlets. There is a change not only in the style of the resource material, language, but also the demands. While there are age-old battles left to win like violence against women, there are newer problems that need to find solutions.

The exhibition opens at Lalit Kala Akademi here this Friday evening and will be on up to April 5.

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