History associates women with madness too casually, especially those whose voices were uncommon in the public sphere. Different, disturbing, difficult — such are the mad women in men’s eyes. Such are the mad women in women’s eyes. Lower-income women, women of color, and immigrant women are habitually marginalized even within the feminist world as “the dominance of a white, middle-class positionality within feminism that often failed to acknowledge the existence of intersectional oppressions” (Packard). Hence, then, how could these women not be mad — constantly dismissed, disregarded, and disrespected, yet forced to live in a fabricated sense of normalcy, carrying years, if not decades and centuries, of unspoken anger and sorrow?
“The Paglees: Between Reason and Madness” at South Asia Institute explores the intertwined relationships and mutually containing perspectives between South Asian immigrant women in regards to participating in global feminism as a distinct collective body.
The Paglees, derived from the plural noun for “mad women” in multiple South Asia languages, is made of seven feminist artists of South Asian origins: Fawzia Khan, Indrani Nayar-Gall, Monica Jahan Bose, Nirmal Raja, Pallavi Sharma, Renluka Maharaj, and Shelly Bahl. In the group’s inaugural eponymous exhibition, viewers are introduced to a rich body of mediums varying from textiles, to works on paper, to installation and sculptures to time-based work. The pieces utilize personal experiences and memories as building modules to construct a collective identity shared by South Asian immigrant women of color. This conjoined collective identity then embraces and confronts the global narrative of a universal sisterhood and feminist universalism.
The Paglees understand the significance of individual experiences in shaping a collective identity; viewers will quickly notice several pieces incorporating inspiration from archived materials and personal stories.
Upon entering the exhibition space, look quickly to your left corner as a few cotton dish towels hung coyly on the wall. Upon first glance from afar, you may easily mistake the images on the napkins as printed. Take a few steps closer. Now, you will see the thousands of stitches the artist used to recreate the glazing eyes of various women in embroidery.
Eyes. Eyes of women. Older women. Younger women. Women wearing glasses. Smiley women. Perplexed women. Titled “Becoming Visible,” Fawzia Khan portrays real women she’d met in Minnesota, exploring the deep-rooted belief that eyes are the windows to one’s soul. By recreating their eyes with embroidery, Khan intends to make these women’s resolution, passion, capability, intelligence, and strength visible. Next to the installation is a video interview with the women captured on the dish towels, allowing the viewer to learn more about their stories.
In another installation, Renluka Maharaj presents mixed media compositions to investigate how history, migration, memory, religion, and gender have informed her and her family’s identity. Maharaj pulled images of Indo-Caribbean women printed on 19th-century European postcards that were used to promote tourism and reassembled them with hand painting, textiles, and embellishments using beads, treating these women as an extension of her family heritage and imagining their lives by adding her personal touches.
Renluka Maharaj, (from clock-work direction) “Fatima, Nadia and Layla”, 2022, “Amaya”, 2022
, “Myra”, 2022, “Kavi with little Anju”, 2022, and “Divya and Deepa” 2022. Image courtesy of South Asia Institute.
A larger identity, or a sense of belonging, is then formed as histories repeat and collide, and individuals cross their paths and venture apart. One woman to a collective feminist identity is a seed to a tree. Each individual carries the full DNA imprint, and together, they determine how they regard, react to, and respond to the turmoils in the world. Blood is not the only relation. Similarities in culture, heritage, religious beliefs, and political background bind women together and allow them to develop a unique way of storytelling.
For example, Pallavi Sharma focused on her private emotions in “Meghdoot (the Cloud Messenger),” referring to the ancient Sanskrit text Meghdutam by the poet Kalidas. Each cloud captures fragments of Sharma’s reflections and prayers for a world disturbed by gender, racial, and ethnic discrimination and violence. While each cloud is a piece of the artist’s private contemplation, it partakes in a larger discussion over more universal problems while bringing South Asian immigrant women of color’s voices to the front stage. The Sanskrit reference offers a glimpse into how shared cultural heritage shapes individual and, thus, collective perspectives on macro-level concerns.
Pallavi Sharma “RaktBeej (Bloodseeds)”, 2021. Photo courtesy of Xiao Faria daCunha.
In “RaktBeej (Bloodseeds),” Sharma created an alternative version of a mythological story where two goddesses fought off an army of demon duplicates to represent women farmers’ contributions in encouraging discourses around the global ecological crisis, mainly how corporate greed and patriarchal structures are destroying biological and cultural diversities. Using found objects, natural wood, clay, recycled fabrics, and other materials, Sharma created a gentle yet powerful wall sculpture designed to tell the goddesses’ battles, not as a compliment to a stronger male god, but as the women’s collective victory.
Once the Paglees highlighted individual women established their collective characteristics, drawing inspiration from their shared heritages, they were ready to partake in an essential global discussion on universalist feminism, aka, the universal sisterhood. As described by David Rutledge: “[Universalist feminism] has too often provided cover for Western feminists to dictate the terms of liberation to women in the Global South.” Shelly Bahl created three large-scale AI-generated tapestries of white women posing in South Asian religious practices — images we’ve all seen too many times used to promote wellness retreats, yoga gurus, and healing masters. The caption above the women are welcoming (“Come to Ma,” one of them says) whereas the women’s expression turned out to be far from peaceful or inspiring as we notice, when observed at a closer distance, one’s angry frown hidden by her praying hand and another’s threatening and hostile smirk in her wide-open eyes under an invitation reading “come to your sister!”. Bahl paired a performance with her tapestries, inviting the visitors to participate in a traditional meditation and receive a piece of candy in return as a gift. On the days Bahl wasn’t there, the candies sat unattended. It’s then up to the exhibition visitor to determine if they will take a piece of candy without completing the ritual or honor Bahl’s tradition and leave the alluring treats alone. And in the case of the latter, how much are we different from the white sisters who appropriated and butchered South Asian women’s heritage for the sake of their awakening?
Shelly Bahl, Sisters of Shakti, Site-specific interactive installation, table with postcards, stamp and a bowl of lollipops, 2 chairs, poster on signboard (2021). Image courtesy of South Asia Institute.
In Monica Jahan Bose’s “Floating/Drowning” performance, she invited women representing varied ethnicities to join her in a climate art advocacy during Miami Art Week in 2016. Bose collaborated with women of her ancestral village and residents of Miami to march down the beach with coconut plants and Saris with writing from Bangladesh and Miami that was used to establish “a people-to-people agreement on climate.” At the end of the parade, the mostly female participants threw the coconut plants into the ocean, hoping for them to take root in a new land someday. Watching the women grouped together and wrapping themselves up with layers of Saris was a sentimental moment. Though momentary, a universal sisterhood transcending a single race or nationality was formed to address the climate crisis. As Bose continues her long-term project, “Storytelling with Saris,” the audience also sees a hopeful future where South Asian women become a powerful voice in global discourses.
The exhibition statement quotes Rosa Parks: “There is just so much hurt, disappointment and oppression one can take. The bubble of life grows larger. The line between reason and madness grows thinner.” The Paglees use their practices to ask a question every immigrant woman of color has asked themselves: How can we remain sane when we live in a world full of madness? And if we can’t, then, we might as well embrace the madness — dance with bare feet on naked grass — grieving eyes with relentless flames — forge a Scarlet letter into a medal. Did you hear that? The mad women have something to say.
History associates women with madness too casually, especially those whose voices were uncommon in the public sphere. Different, disturbing, difficult — such are the mad women in men’s eyes. Such are the mad women in women’s eyes. Lower-income women, women of color, and immigrant women are habitually marginalized even within the feminist world as “the dominance of a white, middle-class positionality within feminism that often failed to acknowledge the existence of intersectional oppressions” (Packard). Hence, then, how could these women not be mad — constantly dismissed, disregarded, and disrespected, yet forced to live in a fabricated sense of normalcy, carrying years, if not decades and centuries, of unspoken anger and sorrow?
“The Paglees: Between Reason and Madness” at South Asia Institute explores the intertwined relationships and mutually containing perspectives between South Asian immigrant women in regards to participating in global feminism as a distinct collective body.
The Paglees, derived from the plural noun for “mad women” in multiple South Asia languages, is made of seven feminist artists of South Asian origins: Fawzia Khan, Indrani Nayar-Gall, Monica Jahan Bose, Nirmal Raja, Pallavi Sharma, Renluka Maharaj, and Shelly Bahl. In the group’s inaugural eponymous exhibition, viewers are introduced to a rich body of mediums varying from textiles, to works on paper, to installation and sculptures to time-based work. The pieces utilize personal experiences and memories as building modules to construct a collective identity shared by South Asian immigrant women of color. This conjoined collective identity then embraces and confronts the global narrative of a universal sisterhood and feminist universalism.
The Paglees understand the significance of individual experiences in shaping a collective identity; viewers will quickly notice several pieces incorporating inspiration from archived materials and personal stories.
Upon entering the exhibition space, look quickly to your left corner as a few cotton dish towels hung coyly on the wall. Upon first glance from afar, you may easily mistake the images on the napkins as printed. Take a few steps closer. Now, you will see the thousands of stitches the artist used to recreate the glazing eyes of various women in embroidery.
Eyes. Eyes of women. Older women. Younger women. Women wearing glasses. Smiley women. Perplexed women. Titled “Becoming Visible,” Fawzia Khan portrays real women she’d met in Minnesota, exploring the deep-rooted belief that eyes are the windows to one’s soul. By recreating their eyes with embroidery, Khan intends to make these women’s resolution, passion, capability, intelligence, and strength visible. Next to the installation is a video interview with the women captured on the dish towels, allowing the viewer to learn more about their stories.
In another installation, Renluka Maharaj presents mixed media compositions to investigate how history, migration, memory, religion, and gender have informed her and her family’s identity. Maharaj pulled images of Indo-Caribbean women printed on 19th-century European postcards that were used to promote tourism and reassembled them with hand painting, textiles, and embellishments using beads, treating these women as an extension of her family heritage and imagining their lives by adding her personal touches.
Renluka Maharaj, (from clock-work direction) “Fatima, Nadia and Layla”, 2022, “Amaya”, 2022
, “Myra”, 2022, “Kavi with little Anju”, 2022, and “Divya and Deepa” 2022. Image courtesy of South Asia Institute.
A larger identity, or a sense of belonging, is then formed as histories repeat and collide, and individuals cross their paths and venture apart. One woman to a collective feminist identity is a seed to a tree. Each individual carries the full DNA imprint, and together, they determine how they regard, react to, and respond to the turmoils in the world. Blood is not the only relation. Similarities in culture, heritage, religious beliefs, and political background bind women together and allow them to develop a unique way of storytelling.
For example, Pallavi Sharma focused on her private emotions in “Meghdoot (the Cloud Messenger),” referring to the ancient Sanskrit text Meghdutam by the poet Kalidas. Each cloud captures fragments of Sharma’s reflections and prayers for a world disturbed by gender, racial, and ethnic discrimination and violence. While each cloud is a piece of the artist’s private contemplation, it partakes in a larger discussion over more universal problems while bringing South Asian immigrant women of color’s voices to the front stage. The Sanskrit reference offers a glimpse into how shared cultural heritage shapes individual and, thus, collective perspectives on macro-level concerns.
Pallavi Sharma “RaktBeej (Bloodseeds)”, 2021. Photo courtesy of Xiao Faria daCunha.
In “RaktBeej (Bloodseeds),” Sharma created an alternative version of a mythological story where two goddesses fought off an army of demon duplicates to represent women farmers’ contributions in encouraging discourses around the global ecological crisis, mainly how corporate greed and patriarchal structures are destroying biological and cultural diversities. Using found objects, natural wood, clay, recycled fabrics, and other materials, Sharma created a gentle yet powerful wall sculpture designed to tell the goddesses’ battles, not as a compliment to a stronger male god, but as the women’s collective victory.
Once the Paglees highlighted individual women established their collective characteristics, drawing inspiration from their shared heritages, they were ready to partake in an essential global discussion on universalist feminism, aka, the universal sisterhood. As described by David Rutledge: “[Universalist feminism] has too often provided cover for Western feminists to dictate the terms of liberation to women in the Global South.” Shelly Bahl created three large-scale AI-generated tapestries of white women posing in South Asian religious practices — images we’ve all seen too many times used to promote wellness retreats, yoga gurus, and healing masters. The caption above the women are welcoming (“Come to Ma,” one of them says) whereas the women’s expression turned out to be far from peaceful or inspiring as we notice, when observed at a closer distance, one’s angry frown hidden by her praying hand and another’s threatening and hostile smirk in her wide-open eyes under an invitation reading “come to your sister!”. Bahl paired a performance with her tapestries, inviting the visitors to participate in a traditional meditation and receive a piece of candy in return as a gift. On the days Bahl wasn’t there, the candies sat unattended. It’s then up to the exhibition visitor to determine if they will take a piece of candy without completing the ritual or honor Bahl’s tradition and leave the alluring treats alone. And in the case of the latter, how much are we different from the white sisters who appropriated and butchered South Asian women’s heritage for the sake of their awakening?
Shelly Bahl, Sisters of Shakti, Site-specific interactive installation, table with postcards, stamp and a bowl of lollipops, 2 chairs, poster on signboard (2021). Image courtesy of South Asia Institute.
In Monica Jahan Bose’s “Floating/Drowning” performance, she invited women representing varied ethnicities to join her in a climate art advocacy during Miami Art Week in 2016. Bose collaborated with women of her ancestral village and residents of Miami to march down the beach with coconut plants and Saris with writing from Bangladesh and Miami that was used to establish “a people-to-people agreement on climate.” At the end of the parade, the mostly female participants threw the coconut plants into the ocean, hoping for them to take root in a new land someday. Watching the women grouped together and wrapping themselves up with layers of Saris was a sentimental moment. Though momentary, a universal sisterhood transcending a single race or nationality was formed to address the climate crisis. As Bose continues her long-term project, “Storytelling with Saris,” the audience also sees a hopeful future where South Asian women become a powerful voice in global discourses.
The exhibition statement quotes Rosa Parks: “There is just so much hurt, disappointment and oppression one can take. The bubble of life grows larger. The line between reason and madness grows thinner.” The Paglees use their practices to ask a question every immigrant woman of color has asked themselves: How can we remain sane when we live in a world full of madness? And if we can’t, then, we might as well embrace the madness — dance with bare feet on naked grass — grieving eyes with relentless flames — forge a Scarlet letter into a medal. Did you hear that? The mad women have something to say.