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[PAST EVENT] Jasmeen Patheja Lecture
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- Open to the public
Please join us in welcoming Jasmeen Patheja to the W&M community. Jasmeen Patheja is an artist, and also the founder director of Blank Noise, a community of Action Sheroes/ Heroes/ Theyroes; citizens, persons across India and beyond, united to eradicate sexual, gender based violence. Patheja initiated Blank Noise in response to street harassment, in 2003, as a graduation project, at a time when sexual violence in public spaces was viewed as a non issue.
Select projects at Blank Noise, conceptualized by Patheja include, I Never Ask For It (2004 - ongoing), where individuals become Action Heroes by bringing in the garment they wore when they experienced violence. The garment is witness, memory and the senders voice to reject any excuse or justification of sexual violence. In recent years, Blank Noise efforts go beyond the street, towards building connection between spaces of violence, and the identities experiencing it, informing project I Never Ask For It. Garments will be installed in sites of public significance in 2023; Project Meet To Sleep (2014- ongoing ), brings Action Sheroes to sleep in their very own public parks, asserting the right to occupy, and to live defenceless; and Talk To Me (2012) , brings men and women to an hour long conversation over tea and samosas, on unsafe sites, in efforts to confront our story of fear, its politics.
To learn more about Jasmeen Patheja, click the following hyperlinks: contact@jasmeenpatheja.com, https://www.jasmeenpatheja.com/, and TED Talks India "Everyone deserves to be safe.".
Contact
Khanh Vo, Equality Lab Graduate Assistant at [[e|kvvo]], Elizabeth Losh, Associate Professor of English at [[emlosh]], and Ravynn Stringfield, Equality Lab Fellow at [[e|rkstringfield]]