Shikha Aleya

Owning Our Boundaries

The concept of boundaries has become mixed up with the concept of being bound in a this-far-and-no-further way. They have become enclosures, aquariums, cages built for those who inhabit them, but not necessarily built by them.

By Shikha Aleya
April 3, 2017
Owning Our Boundaries
Of Socks and Sexuality
An anti-suffragette cartoon. A man washing laundry. On the wall, a board reads, "Everybody works but mother: she's a suffragette".

I grew up with a book cupboard where Paul Gallico’s Love of Seven Dolls rubbed shoulders with Germain Greer’s The…

By Shikha Aleya
November 1, 2015
Of Socks and Sexuality
Of Mobility, Ability and Identity
a picture of the open road

People make assumptions about both mobility and sexuality and quite often reduce them to a few simple, unidimensional concepts. Sexuality is reduced to sex, marriage and the gender binary. Mobility is reduced to ableist concepts of body and capacity, and access to, or the possession of, a vehicle to get from point A to B.

By Shikha Aleya
August 1, 2019
Of Mobility, Ability and Identity
Of heart image and heart powering

Body image, body shaming, fat shaming. Familiar. Heart image, heart shaming, self-shaming. Expanding the same concept. You know how the…

By Shikha Aleya
May 1, 2020
Of heart image and heart powering
Of Braille, Fighter Pilots and a Sexuality-Informed Approach to Science
Braille text.

I spent time reading up the basics of gender-neutral design to understand the connect between science, society and gender. Sometimes, some people try to prove that there are ‘scientific’ reasons for inequality and injustice, for depriving one set of people of the same choices and opportunities that another set of people enjoy. This is not true. Times are changing. ‘Biased technologies’ are being altered.

By Shikha Aleya
July 1, 2016
Of Braille, Fighter Pilots and a Sexuality-Informed Approach to Science
Not So Impervious: Borders of Migration and Sexuality
Illustration of a man touching a woman's butt as she climbs a stair a step ahead of him. Over this is drawn a big orange cross. At the bottom is written in small font, "Respect: Women need to be respected, no matter what they wear. This also applies to German men."

The migrant has come to represent threat on many fronts, with sexuality and sexual behaviours storming the front of fronts. This is because sexuality is in itself so threatening to so many; as a word, as a concept, it is untidy, unknown, uncontainable, like that alien substance bubbling out of its pod in the film ‘Prometheus’. Or ‘Alien’.

By Shikha Aleya
September 1, 2016
Not So Impervious: Borders of Migration and Sexuality
Mobility and sexuality – Re-writing common perceptions
Neenu Kewlani (centre), Gopika Anand (right) and Divya Arora. the winners of the first Miss Wheelchair India contest, decked up in colourful sarees and makeup

… the heroine an amputee on a microprocessor controlled prosthetic leg with a hydraulic foot and ankle system raises her…

By Shikha Aleya
November 1, 2014
Mobility and sexuality – Re-writing common perceptions
Issue in Focus: Women’s Sexuality is a Troubling Thing
Painting of a face with no emotions. It has brown skin, black hair, the background colour is red.

… and the Award goes to… … Vasilyev’s wife … … for having birthed the maximum number of children. I…

By Shikha Aleya
March 1, 2015
Issue in Focus: Women’s Sexuality is a Troubling Thing
Issue In Focus: This Thing We Call Freedom
Screenshot of a computer screen, on which is opened a webpage titled, "Kama Sutra for parents of young children."

Chandra Deo Singh, a name not necessarily familiar to many of us, spent time in prison in1945 for taking part…

By Shikha Aleya
August 1, 2015
Issue In Focus: This Thing We Call Freedom
Issue in Focus: The Heart of Being
An abstractly painted image with magenta and blue and splashes of red, yellow, and black colour. In the background, two brown-black silhouettes.

To chase down our own vulnerabilities around sexuality is a short run around the corner, five minutes ago, last night sleeping alone, with a lover, a partner who lost interest, the Insta post that leaves you feeling you’re not good enough for the hug, the kiss, the cuddle and are you perhaps the A of LGBTQIA+?

By Shikha Aleya
April 19, 2021
Issue in Focus: The Heart of Being
Issue in Focus: The Heart of Being
An abstractly painted image with magenta and blue and splashes of red, yellow, and black colour. In the background, two brown-black silhouettes.

To chase down our own vulnerabilities around sexuality is a short run around the corner, five minutes ago, last night sleeping alone, with a lover, a partner who lost interest, the Insta post that leaves you feeling you’re not good enough for the hug, the kiss, the cuddle and are you perhaps the A of LGBTQIA+?

By Shikha Aleya
January 3, 2023
Issue in Focus: The Heart of Being
Issue In Focus: The Conversations We Don’t Have
A woman in a white sleeveless tee shirt.

A long, long time ago, in a room far, far away, I remember playing at being a mythological hero I…

By Shikha Aleya
February 1, 2016
Issue In Focus: The Conversations We Don’t Have
Issue In Focus: Rabbits, Monsters And Terrified Therapists
Abract pastel sketches on white paper

The rabbit and the monster is a story about a baby rabbit all alone in a jungle trying to escape…

By Shikha Aleya
April 1, 2015
Issue In Focus: Rabbits, Monsters And Terrified Therapists
Issue in Focus: Hackers and High Heels
A two-panel comic. A man in white pants and tucked-in white shirt stands behind a woman who is wearing similar clothing. She looks to the side while working on some machine at the table. She says with a stern face to him, "I am a bit busy to smile. Stand back while I test the laser."

Adeanna Cooke:
International model, featured in Playboy,
Established hacker and amateur computer programmer.

By Shikha Aleya
June 5, 2016
Issue in Focus: Hackers and High Heels
Issue in Focus: Beyond Ramps and Restrictions
Still from a Hindi film 'Lipstick under my Burkha'. A young woman wearing blue-coloured lehnga is dancing merrily in an Indian wedding. She has one hand on her hip, another behind her head, and is tilting upwards with her eyes closed, and lips pout.

Accessibility begins with access, enabled or denied, to concepts and ideas. At the core, beyond the architecture of the real and virtual worlds, it is about the architecture of the ways in which this access is broadened, to not only accommodate, but to nurture, the myriad expressions of human minds and bodies.

By Shikha Aleya
August 3, 2017
Issue in Focus: Beyond Ramps and Restrictions
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