Body
But what about the “moments we don’t Instagram”? What about the uglier parts of our physical lived realities? What about the parts of our body, our identities, our sexuality we don’t perform on social media, but are still an intrinsic part of who we are?
The misconceptions associated with the varied manifestations of femininity can be exceedingly deleterious and reinforce gender roles, traditional patriarchal ideas, and stereotypes related to bodies, expressions and the way we experience our sexual and romantic relationships.
“Every type of body is beautiful, and more importantly every type of body is different,” says artist Veer Mishra while describing Body, his series of illustrations. This ‘difference’ is the essence of what he tries to portray through his art.
Body is born, as a collection of many parts, into the various collections of bodies. Different combinations or collections are projected onto various historical, spatial and temporal dimensions, out of our needs, desires and capabilities.
For the last seven years, I have been working on a body of work titled Hotel Rooms themed around fluid male sexuality, mental health, queerness, and challenging deep-rooted societal gender binaries.
[slideshow_deploy id=’5490′] To some Amrita Sher-Gil is the ‘Indian Frida Kahlo’. This month we feature five of her paintings which show women…
As shocking as his request for a nude was, what confused me even more was why would he want nudes from me, a woman who hated her body? Would he appreciate these saggy breasts with their stretch marks? My ever growing thighs and my belly which has body hair on it, wouldn’t he think I’m ugly?
Who is this that works my hand?
Who is this that moves my pen?
Touch is a beetle creeping on this foreign thing
That wears my body like an evening.
Our most powerful, sexy, responsive and attractive sexual organ may be the mind, but it is through the body that we express and experience our sexuality. Our body is our first and primary home; whether we truly feel at home in it is another matter.
Fragile and fleeting like soap bubbles, pleasure shines with many colours. But its iridescence is frightening for many. Perhaps because its colours change in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways, and though fragile and fleeting, it is a world in itself
For I was a woman / Taught to chain herself gracefully / In an invisible cage.
No two human bodies are alike, and our different bodies arouse curiosity. But our fascination for the aesthetics of the perfect human body has historically created a space within art, science and religion for the examination of the ‘abnormal’ and the ‘imperfect’. As a result, some bodies are normalised while others become oddities.
Where did my body go? This is a question I have asked myself repeatedly over the last two years. My…
This piece won’t write itself as an opinion piece or a review of experiences that happened or were bound to…