Workshops
Reframing the Visual Depiction of Women and Sexual Violence in Southasia
Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange
Fear, intimidation, objectification and victims are the predominant themes in images used to depict sexual violence against women in the media. Can you visualise images that are more empowering, more nuanced, that show women in all their complexity, that show resilience and resistance? Be a part of challenging and changing this visual discourse
Come, share your talent, share your vision in this workshop facilitated by the Hri Institute for Southasian Research in conjunction to their project Challenging Visual Depiction of Women and Sexual Violence in Southasia which aims to challenge gender insensitive visual and aural depiction of sexual violence against women in Southasia.
Thanks to robust women’s movements in the region, the rising incidents and brutality of incidents of sexual violence has been met with strong protests and demands for accountability. Considerable strides forward have been made to improve media reporting of sexual violence, making it less sensational, more based on women’s lived experiences, gender-sensitive and ethical. However, images that accompany news-reports tend to remain stereotypical and even damaging by reinforcing stigma, helplessness, shame and victim-blaming. Join this workshop and learn to create a more empowering and compassionate visual narrative.
Selected works (sketches, paintings, cartoons, photos) will be showcased on the website of the Hri Institute as part of the pool of stock images that exists.
Bookings
Bookings are closed for this event.
Laxmi Murthy
Laxmi Murthy is a contributing editor with Himal Southasian, the region’s premier political review magazine published from Colombo. Currently based in Bangalore, she also heads the Hri Institute for South Asian Research and Exchange, a unit under the Himal banner, conducting cross-border research in South Asia. She is currently engaged in a project challenging visual depiction of violence against women in Southasia. Laxmi has worked with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) since 2002.
She is editor of the annual UNESCO-IFJ South Asia Press Freedom Report. She was deputy co-ordinator of the Sexual Violence and Impunity research and publication project anchored at feminist publishing house, Zubaan, New Delhi. Laxmi has been associated with the autonomous women’s movement for more than three decades. She is co-founder of the Network of Women in Media, India, and the Free Speech Collective, a platform to promote the right to free speech and expression and lobby for journalists’ rights in India.
Pawas Manandhar
Pawas Manandhar is the program manager at the Southasia Trust, the parent organisation for Film Southasia and the Hri Institute of Southasian Research and exchange. He has experience working in development agencies like Oxfam and Pulte Institute of Global Development in the US, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste and local Nepali policy institutes like Daayitwa. Pawas has been affiliated with Hri for the past 3 years on the project “Challenging Depictions of Women and Sexual Abuse in Southasian Media”. Currently, he is working on organising Film Southasia’s 14th Edition that is to be held in November in Kathmandu.
