Over two years, New York-based photographer Spandita Malik traversed the hinterlands of Rajasthan and Punjab, clicking and conversing with survivors of domestic abuse
Over two years, the New York-based photographer traversed the hinterlands of Rajasthan and Punjab, photographing survivors of domestic abuse. But her process didn’t end at documenting the women. Once the portraits were taken, she transposed them onto homespun khadi cloth and sent them back to the subjects. The women were free to do whatever they wished with their portraits—embroider, paint, tear, stitch, scratch out. Parween embroidered three women around her, her little army.
This work of art, in addition to the portraits of women whom Malik consciously sought out, is part of her Nā́rī series. When other women heard about ‘Nā́rī’, they reached out to Malik with their own stories, encouraging friends who had suffered through the same atrocities to come forward as well. These portraits became part of a new series linked to Nā́rī titled Jāḷī—Meshes of Resistance.
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