People and interaction form the basis of Jasmeen's work. Her works are interventionist by nature and use a range of media from photography, videoin stallation, sound, performance and the blog.

Jasmeen photographs almost 'anything' – tangibly ranging from children, family, weddings, and the city streets to collaborative projects such as the ongoing one with her grandmother – Indri, and Birth Control (2002) where a group of young 'heterosexual' boys in Leicester were photographed in women's garments.

Jasmeen studied fine art at the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore . She has been a fellow at Sarai CSDS (2005) and is currently a fellow at Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. (2007-2009). Jasmeen is also a fellow resident at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart (2007-2008).

Tasveer Arts is currently displaying Jasmeen Patheja's photographs titled Running Amok in New Delhi , Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore . Geetu Sachdeva in conversation with Jasmeen…

Geetu: Photographing people – is it invasive?
Jasmeen :  It's not invasive unless I intend it to be – for example when I am photographing people who have violated me on the street – at this point the aesthetics of image transcend with the nature of the act – I have to shoot the person/get back/strike a conversation/intervene.

If I am walking on the street with my camera I do not appear threatening – simply by being a woman photographer on the street allows me to get in there. I would not call myself invasive because if I am shooting people on the street I like them then to engage the willing with the camera. At all points I think that when I shoot people its their engagement rather than them as subjects, hence they become active participants and create the image with me.

I am also interested in what happens to people when put in front of the camera – what is the performance that it initiates. How do they want to represent themselves?

I got thinking about the collaborator, participant and the subject while doing a project in Leicester , in 2001. I was about 21 years old and for the first time I realized how the camera made me feel in control- the project involved a group of 9 young 'heterosexual'  boys/men who were asked if they would wear women's clothes and allow me to document that. The boys were between the age group of 17-22. Three were older; one included the college vice principal. For the first time in my life I was dealing with vulnerable boys; vulnerable because of the idea and the female photographer. Suddenly the boys were actually vulnerable before me/ the camera – also the project made them uncomfortable, yet they challenged themselves. Most had not informed parents that they were going to participate . Most had not informed parents that they were going to participate – one guy could not believe that his body could actually hold/ fit perfectly in a woman's garment. He could not tell his parents that he dressed up in a girls garment and he was just so shocked that a woman's dress could actually fit his whole body.

One guy who was very excited about and it was this guy, Vishal, who called himself Roxanne and he wore a wig. By the end of it all of them got strangely comfortable with their female personas and had also named themselves.

G: Your interest in photography or your Blank Noise project- what came first?
J: This is more like the chicken and egg story but strictly chronologically speaking I picked up the camera before I started Blank Noise in 2003.

Ever since I can remember I was agitated and disturbed by the hostility and aggression on the streets. In that sense it is hard for me to define what came first. I suppose walking on the street with a camera gave me the license to be there – to be a single woman walking without a purpose- a female wanderer.

The camera allowed me to enage with the city in a way that most women do. I was walking, talking with strangers, engaging…that was an enriching process…perhaps which also lends itself to blank noise. Both blank noise and photography are different modes of operation for me, but they constantly give me access to people and strangers.  

G :Your Blank noise project is moving into the male perspective. These two seem similar in some way as you seem to be seeking understanding… an understanding of why street sexual  harassment exists – from both sides.
J: That is the tone and how we are approaching the issue. It's not just a male versus female issue but a societal one. In the beginning it was important to start with a slightly angry aggressive tone- to create a 'reaction' – because you need public reaction and you need to make an issue out of something that is seen as a non-issue – and then move towards ways of being proactive and empathetic.

G: You then couldn't be sympathetic towards it…
J: Yeah. But now I feel that that is becoming a popular way of seeing feminism which is dangerous  like " Oh, you should hate men, you should attack men.” There are all kinds of people who join Blank Noise – girls and women, and men and boys. Some boys who are say that “I am not a feminist, but I understand this issue.” There is also this distorted view of seeing feminism as something that is stereotypically seen as 'you hate men'. Now I hope you not going to ask me how I see feminism…!

Yes. So Blank noise is moving towards being more empathetic.

G: Besides the fact that there was perception of Blank Noise that was being inadvertently created, a very ‘pro feminism' view that you were uncomfortable with, would you have naturally progressed towards this understanding? Would you be in this position of seeking understanding not as reaction because you want to alter an existing perception?
J: Yes, Blank Noise is 'feminist' , it is taking a stand of course and bringing people into dialogue…while hopefully altering or challenging people's notion of the 'scary feminist'.

Through our actions and interventions and the open debate on the blog, I think somewhere we are establishing that feminism is not 'anti-men' and that it is an ideology and the fact that there are male feminists too.

The blog does not sloganeer. Some of the debates on the blog raise questions on wooing. What is the kind of man you would choose to react to and why? Is it just a mismatch of cultural codes? If some guy at a discotheque looks at you in a certain way, why would you take it as a compliment versus an auto rickshaw driver? How many times are you reacting to a male because you are taught to fear a male, be it any kind of male? Or you are taught to fear an alien male so an alien male could be a male from a different social milieu…

G:  Looking at it from the male perspective?
J: There are all kinds of men…there are some men who could be ‘committing' street sexual violence without knowing that they are. For some it is a form of wooing. And its not like the street is not a flirting zone. There are attractions and people fall in love on the street…

So there are different kinds of men…Some are just not sure how to ask the girl out. A lot of this I learnt just l;ast year when I walked the streets of Delhi interviewing men. I just kept asking then what kind of women you find attractive, what do you do when you find an attractive woman. There were all kinds of responses. Some were flirting back with me because I was a female interviewer and if I didn't have male co-interviewer with me the dynamics of the conversation would be completely different. There were answers like one started singing a shairee … "gum hi gam hai zindagi mein meri… and then… “I fall in love with a stranger and that's why I am so sad." Or "I keep falling in love with women who are strangers." I played this for my exhibition at Max Meuller Bhavan. All these male voices… I think its been on my head for the last few years and last year was when all fell in place. The song went.. " gum hi gam hai zindagi mein meri…and then… I fall in love with a stranger and that's why I am so sad". Or " I keep falling in love with women who are strangers"…Or another guy was like you know, and he was a shopkeeper in Sarojini Nagar market. "If I find a woman attractive I go upto her and I ask her for her phone number and I give her mine."

I know if that somebody did that to me, I would probably be furious. Like this is not accepted street behaviour. I don't want a stranger male coming up to me even if its in a maybe place where everyone is from the same social milieu. But sometimes it also raises questions on how its being done. The emphasis where wooing is concerned is on how that person is expressing rather than what that person is saying. So at the basic level everyone wants to get to know each other but how is this person making an effort. But that's one kind of male. The other kind of male is this typical thing of you know "Oh! This girl is dressed a certain way." Again, its another guy from another social milieu putting a girl in place. Saying "Sikha dena hai ussey." Literally putting a girl in place.

G: Where is this attitude coming from you think?
J: No one answer but it's clearly a societal reinforcement. It's been there for generations and generations…reinforced accepted male behaviour.

G: So even he is a product of his conditioning as much as the girl is a product of hers?
J: Yeah, exactly – being taught to fear men – seeing herself as a victim.

G: Through Blank Noise you want to change the status quo, raise public consciousness, awareness, inculcate a certain sensitivity… Does it stem from a reaction?
J: Its not a reaction in a binary sense. I think in terms of the approaches that we have had, its not been one reaction. The first phase, which is like the largest chunk, was in saying, that okay this exists. This is not something that is normal. Not something that is trivial. This was the first step. The main stream media has supported Blank Noise and now we find that there is a lot more talk about the issue of street sexual violence.

G: Your relationship with your grandmom – describe what it is without the pictures…
J: Without the pictures?  I don't know what it is right now without the pictures! I was thinking this morning, I don't know what I say about her is really her because I have almost fictionalised her in my head. But what is evident I guess is that we make a collaborative team.

G: Yeah- I was thinking about this today itself- I just know your relationship through your photographs. I don't know it through what Jasmeen has said she feels for her…
J: Well, I look at her with a lot of fondness. Just the way she is. I mean, she's always been like this grandmother who has challenged the stereotype of a grandmother. Who has gone off to the US and come back in a pair of jeans- in the eighties. That was something no grandmother was doing. Or someone who has fought her way but learnt how to drive the car and i still cannot drive one! Or someone who wants a laptop just for just because she wants it, is learning mircrosoft word and watching DVD's on it. You know?! I love her spirit.

G: So you admire he spirit. Do your photographs speak about this relationship or are they about her?
J: I don't think that you can remove my relationship from the frame because I am photographing her and she is my collaborator. Together we form a team that starts from being granddaughter grandmother but is going somewhere else because of the camera.

G: Which are the other media you work with?
J: Well I've worked with video, I blog, sound, text performance-based on where the idea is stemming from I figure out the appropriate medium. Sometimes the medium determines the idea.

G: Lets talk about some of your favorite photographs.
J: Right now my most favorite picture is of this girl going down the escalator. She is really in her own world.. and very cold and distant. At the same time she's very feminine, very fragile and yet strong and independent. Jasmine is 4 years old. F ormally also the picture has that kind of pink feminine quality  with the coldness of the metal and going into something that your not sure. Your not sure where this escalator is going… its not stairs... its just one slope escalator kind of thing. So I like that image – its stuck in my head right now.

G: What about prior to this?
J: I think I like some of the images about my grandmother. Again the recent one where she is just sitting…there's something girly about her performances. I like the idea of, and even in the images it comes across, an elderly person with the spirit of a girl.

G: When you had started Blank Noise I remember seeing some of your posters and photographs with mannequins…Is there some kind of fascination that you are aware of?
J: was not aware while photographing but only when I look back at my images I realize that I photograph when I find something absurd in the everyday normal. Something about the markets, mannequins, shopping, men selling female underclothes in a sexually repressed society, male tailors for sari blouses – there are absurd ideas and thoughts and then there is an absurd image before you. There is humour in the absurd, something not fitting in, something missing, all of which comes to life while walking in the city with a camera.

(The interviewer: Geetanjali Sachdev is faculty at Shristi Scool of Art, Design and Technology)
Reproduced with permission of www.tasveerarts.com