A feminist biennale
"Give it to the women"
-Anita Dube, curator, Kochi-Muziris Biennale
At the Aspinwall House in Fort Kochi, you cross a dark hall to emerge into the light and come face to face with a collage that is a mix of poetry, text and miniature painting. Titled 'Salam Chechi', the work is artist Nilima Sheikh's ode to the Malayali nurse.
In one frame, against an intense blue background is an outline of a girl and a hospital bed in stark white.
"It could be me," says Sheikh. Indeed, there is a touch of the autobiographical, a portrait of the artist as a young girl. She would often accompany her doctor father to hospital, sketchbook in hand. It is where she learnt to paint suffering.
In another frame, a woman is shown being tended to by two nurses. She is a victim of domestic abuse. The words of poet-nurse Constance Studer flow alongside:
"...an admission arrives domestic abuse
we know this woman well
the ER nurse says.
We couple the fragile woman
To bubbling tubes and catheters
And monitors unconscious,
Fine skin with deeply incised
by both eyes..."
The panel in the middle has a woman supported by two nurses on either side while a third stands on the side with a drip. "That image is interesting," says Sheikh, "because it is very dear to me. There is a famous
