Blank Noise raises voice for a cause

R Jai Krishna

CHENNAI: Chennai joined the Blank Noise Project, a campaign that seeks to
fight street sexual harassment by encouraging society to reflect and change
public attitude towards women, with a meeting held in the city recently.

Talking about the project, evolved out of common-thinking bloggers, Jasmeen
Patheja, founder-director of the Blank Noise project said: "Eve teasing is
street sexual harassment. It's not a prank or a joke as the term suggests."

"A lot of individuals had written in saying that they want to take the
initiative in Chennai. After the first meeting, we will decide on the
activities. Though we cannot ignore the fact that each city is different and
there are problems specific to Chennai, the campaign will be the same: to
recognize eve teasing as a sexual crime and establish the issue as something
that may be normal, but is unacceptable," she said.

Volunteers will take the initiative and organize intervention programmes by
identifying areas where sexual harassment is prevalent.

"In Mumbai, we are targeting the local trains. In Bangalore, we have
identified Brigade Road. So we will have to discuss what would be an appropriate
place for Chennai," she explains.

You don't need to be a blogger or even a woman to be part of the project, the
organizers say. "Anyone can join. You come in and take it forward. We think
that self-formed groups like Hyderabad and Chennai will be more proactive
because they don't need to be told to do something about it," says Jasmeen.

The recent `blogathon,' a blog-based online marathon, saw participation from
over 200 bloggers across the country.

"Yes, we became even more popular. More and more bloggers are talking
about it. It has had a big impact on Chennai. But this is something that we
started way back in 2003. It started as a reflective movement and not as a
reactionary or activism-based movement," says Jasmeen.

At the meeting held at Lady Andal school premises last Saturday evening,
members of the community against eve teasing decided to conduct polls that might
come up with Acts that constitute eve teasing, a clothing exhibit at a men's
college, women's college as well as one in the Co-educational colleges, apart
from schools, as many suggested that eve teasing was the resultant of one's
attire.

The members have also decided to conduct public performances of eve teasing
scenarios including doing some street interventions in prime locales of the
metropolis.

Blank Noise has a floating population of volunteers who come together for
specific projects and carries out intervention programmes.



Participatory, Public Project

So, what is Blank Noise Project all about?

Blank Noise is a participatory and public project seeking to address the
issue of 'eve teasing' or street sexual harassment. Eve teasing is an issue that
has not been recognized as one, because it connotes a joke or a prank but most
often has a severe invisible impact on women, who are the more common victims.
The idea is to confront, deny denial and heal.

Why this name? Blank Noise?

Blank: no form, no meaning.

Noise: heightens, builds, breaks form.

Blank Noise put together is two words that contradict themselves.



”We experience eve teasing daily. It is a sexual violation but we ignore it.
At the same time, we structure our lives to avoid the occurrence of it - by
'dressing decently', 'coming back home on time', etc, thereby making unwanted
rules for ourselves and not recognizing ourselves as citizens,” Jasmeen says.



This daily silent experience of street sexual harassment is what comes closest
to the term blank noise.



When? Where? How? Why?



Blank Noise was initiated in August 2003 by Jasmeen Patheja from Bangalore and a
small group of nine participants, all girls.



Blank Noise started off as Jasmeen's final year student project while she was
studying for a Fine Arts Diploma at the Srishti School of Art Design and
Technology. The project was conceived as a personal reaction to street sexual
harassment.

Jasmeen says, "The threat of being sexually harassed every time I was
out of home and then labeling this invasion of my privacy with such an innocuous
term as 'eve teasing' made me realize that this is an offence that has often
been ignored or trivialized. Moving to a new city at the age of 19 made me feel
more vulnerable to the situation where there was no 'home' to run back to. When
I would discuss it with my peers, there was a normalcy attached to it - 'yes, it
happens everyday' or 'it's normal', or complete denial, like asking, 'how come
this happens only to you'. But I know it was never just my problem."



Jasmeen started by asking a group of over 60 girls from Srishti to make a mind
map with the word public space. In three minutes words such as groping, fear,
vulnerable, weak, staring, feeling sick appeared. She proposed the project but
only 24 of them responded. The rest felt it was 'normal' or that it 'wasn't a
big deal', almost as if you expect it and, therefore, accept it. The immediate
denial towards eve teasing as an issue triggered the project.

The story so far?

The first phase of the project, throughout 2003, was more reflective with
nine participants and workshops.

The second phase has been more public, through street interventions and
blogging. To a large extent, the public and the media response have shaped the
project.

The first phase of the Blank Noise Project dealt with victimhood. We began
with a series of workshops, which explored the public and private identities of
these nine women. This collective participatory experience evolved into an
installation that included video, sound and photographs. With this installation
Jasmeen tried to address the victim, the perpetrator and the silent spectator as
members of the audience.

The next phase involved public confrontation. With a grant from Sarai and
support from Srishti, Jasmeen envisioned Blank Noise as a participatory, public
art project where she could take the issue to the streets, while including a
wider base of participants.

In its current stage, the project has a diverse set of participants, who
include college students, performance artists, researchers, young professionals,
etc. We are currently working on public interventions that are performative in
nature. This stage of the project has us disseminating and questioning the law
(particularly Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with outraging
the 'modesty' of a woman).

“Through opinion polls, we are also attempting, most importantly, to be
able to define eve teasing, which is such an open-ended and frivolous term.”

What does all of this aim at? What are you trying to achieve?

“We don't believe that one policy change or one street intervention, or one
media report can change the world. We have to address the issue from multiple
avenues over a period of time. Eve teasing is a societal issue, has its roots in
patriarchy, and reflects in films and in our popular culture.

We are proposing to initiate a transformation, start the dialogue, through
recurring public events, public participation and collaborations. We are looking
at communicating, through participation, with policy-makers, as well.”

Blank Noise is interventionist, and critically reflective of the issue. It
seeks to confront, and create communities through public art. Blank Noise works
with people through performance, blogging, and street interventions.

This is a public art project seeking to address eve teasing. There are
several ways to address an issue and we choose the language of public and
community art.



Art? Social change?

But art has, throughout history, played a significant role in social change.
Even in contemporary times, artists like the Guerilla Girls, Peggy Diggs and
Gran Fury have brought about change in societal attitudes through their art - on
billboards, bumper stickers, posters and even milk cartons. For instance, since
Peggy Diggs was concerned about domestic violence, she printed her message on
milk cartons, which women bought. Gran Fury collaborated with activist groups
and created billboards, confronting the public with the social stigma attached
to AIDS.



What, then, is Blank Noise doing?

Blank Noise works with media that is both mainstream and alternative,
depending on the nature of the project undertaken.



Our current interventions are:



Did you ask for it?

Blank Noise wants you to discard your clothes worn at the time you were eve
teased (sexually harassed) on the streets. This collective building of an
installation of clothes seeks, primarily, to erase the assumption that you
'asked for it' because of what you were wearing. That you are to blame and only
'provocatively dressed', and therefore 'immodest' women are eve-teased.



We hope to gather clothes across different cities as testimonials of eve teasing
and install them on the streets. We hope women will stop blaming themselves,
your body, and your clothes. What Blank Noise hopes to do is bring together 1000
clothes, install them on the streets, in public spaces and collectively defy the
notion of 'modesty'.

Photographing the perpetrator:

Women camera and the Internet

There could be innumerable approaches on self-defense, on protecting
yourself. What works for us, is the camera. You could get even with your eve
teasers, reverse the position of power through just one click. We have had
experiences where people have apologized, admitted, felt shame for sexually
harassing us. These pictures are then put online, our friends in New York,
HOLLABACKNYC are doing precisely this, and it works! We swear by it!

The action of taking a picture of a perpetrator leching/ groping/ whistling/
catcalling is empowering in itself, through this simple act we reverse the gaze.

Why R U looking at me?

In this intervention, each woman wears one alphabet around her neck and we
spell out the sentence on busy sidewalks, at traffic lights, in a mall, in any
public space. And it's done silently. No one speaks, no-one answers. There's
only one probing question being asked - why are you looking at me?

Opinion Polls

During all interventions, and on a weekly basis, we conduct opinion polls to
define eve teasing. These are short polls, which take less than a minute to fill
in and are to be answered by men and women. They work! They are participatory,
non-threatening, and everyone on the street can engage with it. This further
leads to a collective definition of the term 'eve teasing?'



Is it all about the women?

It may be called 'eve' teasing and spoken of as if it happens only to women
but we have found that men also experience street sexual harassment. They just
have a different way of looking at their bodies and dealing with the issue. As
women, we are taught to protect our bodies and we are layered with ideas of
modesty and shame. Izzat. Lajja. Men are expected to be men - mard - and they
are supposed to deny that they can be victims, too.

So a roughly typical reaction might be - yes, I got felt up but I pity the
bugger because he's gay.

Eve teasing, therefore, despite its rather misleading nomenclature, is not an
all-girl issue but a societal one. By being a mute witness, by teasing (sexually
harassing) or by ignoring/ denying the issue, we are responsible for it.

How does one know if s/he fit in? What does it take?

All you need to do to join Blank Noise is get in touch with us. If you feel
strongly enough about eve teasing and are willing to do something about it,
Blank Noise would be glad to have you on board. And we can use any skills you
have from writing to artwork to design to being net-savvy or just being willing
to give your time to spreading awareness.

But the rider is that we are open only to those who are committed enough to
go beyond articulating an opinion. To join the Blank Noise team, you must be
able to reflect and take collective action. There are core areas where you can
join an existing team. We also have regular interventions, which you can
participate in. Or, you can propose a new idea, a new intervention, a new area
of focus and go ahead by forming a team.

Currently, Blank Noise participants include researchers, college students,
journalists, technicians, activists, an architect, and young professionals.
There are both men and women, and just happen to fall between the age groups of
17- 30 years.

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