Art inspires dialogue and reflection, affirms Museum of Goa director Sharada Kerkar
In this photo essay from the Museum of Goa, we showcase highlights of the exhibition titled ‘What Women Carry.’
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The Museum of Goa’s exhibition this month is titled What Women Carry. See our coverage of earlier exhibitions at this museum from 2022 onwards here.
The showcase features the works of artists Chaitali Morajkar and Harshada Kerkar. The exhibited baskets and pots carried by women are intended to be symbolic of the various roles and burdens that they carry in their daily lives.
“The team at the Museum of Goa (MoG) wanted to curate an exhibition focusing on the lived experiences of women to celebrate International Women’s Month. We started by looking at women artists based in Goa whose work has previously explored ideas of womanhood,” museum director Sharada Kerkar tells YourStory.
Artist Harshada Kerkar has long practised the sketching of women from Goan markets using charcoal, depicting them through larger-than-life artworks. This was an idea that excited the MoG team.
“Chaitali Morajkar’s work was the perfect contrast to Harshada’s pieces, offering colour to her charcoal and surrealism to her realism. Taken together, we were really inspired by their mediums and their approach to their work,” Kerkar recalls.
This message was genuine and came through in the artistic expression of daily life experiences. The museum team then worked on understanding the stories the artists wanted to narrate through their artwork, and contextualised them to larger ideas connected to womanhood.
“Each woman’s experience at the end of the day is a reflection of every woman’s experience in more than one way. What Women Carry was the immediate phrase that came to mind,” Kerkar describes.
Harshada Kerkar depicted women quite literally carrying various parts of their own worlds, and the world around them, on top of their heads. “In contrast, Morajkar used pots and turned them over to indicate what weightlessness can look like for women,” Sharada Kerkar says.
“The theme stems from real experiences, thoughts, feelings, and one’s own self, of the artist, of the muses, of the team, and of everyone who stood in front of a work and saw themselves in it,” she adds.
She was pleased with the kinds of feedback received. “In many ways, the exhibition belonged to everyone who paused to reflect and absorb it,” Kerkar explains.
The reactions were personal and universal, and allowed people to develop deep connections with the artwork. “A lot of women who visited the exhibition told us it reminded them of themselves or other women in their lives,” she adds.
Sharada Kerkar
A lot of men who visited the exhibition were also reminded about women in their lives. “They talked about how it was interesting for them to see these struggles being addressed, thus also creating awareness,” Kerkar says.
Critical feedback from visitors highlighted the fact that while the exhibition explored the theme of ‘weights’ women carry, it did not cover all aspects of this complex issue.
“However, this sparked meaningful discussions and encouraged visitors to think critically about the topic. Despite potential gaps in representation, the exhibition successfully initiated conversations and debates, demonstrating art’s power to inspire dialogue and reflection on feminism,” Kerkar signs off.
Now, what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule and harness your creative side for a better world?
(All photographs were taken by Madanmohan Rao on location at the Museum of Goa.)