Charting India's sexual revolution

At a time when bans seem to be an ongoing phenomena with the increasing clampdown on personal freedom Mumbaibased French artist Fabien Charaursquos exhibition comes as a breath of fresh air Inspired by his many visits to Mumbairsquos Bandstand and Reclamation areas his latest exhibition titled Thousand Kisses Deep looks at how these spaces are dotted with couples everywhere ldquoThese areas have become hangout spots for couples from all strata of societyFabien Charau poses with his installation titled Being Seen Trying at Chatterjee amp Lal Gallery Colaba PicBipin KokateEveryone from the age of 15 wants to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend itrsquos beautiful On social media more people are admitting to be in a relationship by posting photos as couples online A soft sexual revolution is taking place in Indiardquo he suggests amidst lastminute touches to his artworks prior to DDayHe explains how he procured the final images ldquoThese were created from photographs that couples had posted on social media displaying affection openly The idea was to get between the pixels of these pictures An algorithm has been created by me to reveal more information from the picture It takes about four to five hours for one to be created I had no control over the output I felt like it was a chemistry experiment being conducted with digital imagesrdquo he sharesMobile phone artThe exhibition will also feature a mobile phone installation titled Send Some Candids which highlights the aggression that women face on Indian streets on a daily basis ldquoMen on Mumbairsquos streets were shooting women with their mobile phones It happened to a friend of mine The guys were five metres away when he photographed her I want to speak about this kind of aggression against women This is visible through the gaze of men also how men look at women speak about them mdash the whole gamut of misbehaviour seen on the streetsrdquo he says adding ldquoThese photos are called candid photography There were many such photos on porn websites but those didnrsquot interest me I found online forums mainly for young Indian men where they post about whatrsquos going on in their lives there is a section typically on geeky things like gadgets and a large section is pornography There were long threads with these voyeuristic photographs Somebody would put up one photo and people would comment It gave me an insight into their mind and who they were I spent four months and collected about 10000 photosrdquoOnline obsessionldquoI have a very feminist point of viewrdquo he confesses ldquoIt is an important project as I started thinking about digital images here Today when a photo is uploaded on the internet it gets saved in different servers and they are there forever you canrsquot really take them off I wanted to find a way to make those photos disappear My idea was to use the mobile phones that these men were using These old phones are not smart phones I made a slideshow of 100 photos which lasts for five minutes I played it on the screen of one mobile phone and recorded it on the other mobile phone I recorded it on loop 18 timesrdquo he explains while sharing the technalitiesConnect the twoThe two projects at the exhibition are connected to each other ldquoAfter Send Some Candids people asked me why does this aggression happen and how to change it We donrsquot have much interaction between the sexes I realised Most men donrsquot know what a woman is made of and what their wants could be Access to sex and intimacy doesnrsquot exist When you start having a girlfriend at 15 you will start looking at women differently When you love someone you learn to respect the person Such a guy wonrsquot start filming women on the street after five years Hence it was very important for me todisplay the two projects togetherrdquo he confessesFrom August 14 to September 26 closed on Sundays and MondaysTime 11 am to 7 pmAt Chatterjee amp Lal 118 Kamal Mansion first floor Arthur Bunder Road Colaba