Heard of the Guardians Of Our Morality? No, it’s not yet another upcoming superhero movie, but rather a wry comment on the over zealousness of a few to “protect” us from the so-called vices of society. Big Brother believes our cultural values are so seriously in danger of being eroded that it must constantly monitor what we eat, watch, read and whom we live with – and censor anything it sees fit.
When Akshita Chandra, a Bengaluru based student of the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology was required to work on an art project that called for taking a part of history and meshing it with a contemporary topical issue, she chose to depict moral policing in the current context.
The result: Being Censitive (a pun on the words ‘censor’ and ‘sensitive’), a collection of 28 pop-up art images juxtaposed with drawings inspired from the Khajuraho Temple in Madhya Pradesh. Akshita astutely observes that although the nude statues constitute only a small percentage of the temple’s total sculptures, it is to them that Khajuraho owes its popularity. While erotica in a place of worship seems to be perfectly acceptable, she points out sensuality in real life is often labelled obscene.
One of Chandra’s pieces is a cutout of a window that opens to reveal a couple engaged in copulation; the idea she says came from a raid Mumbai police conducted on hotels to hound out young couples. Another piece is a take on the absurd ban on lingerie mannequins; when a strip of paper is removed, two scantily clad women in a classic Khajuraho pose reveal their naked form.
Akshita’s drawings are an attempt to engage viewers in a conversation about censorship versus liberalism, privacy versus voyeurism, free will of consenting adults versus moral monitoring.
Check out Being Censitive on Akshita’s Tumblr and follow the artist on Instagram
Featured image source: Homegrown
Words by Pavi Sagar
