Description:
Radhaben Garva lives in a small village in the Kutch district of Gujarat in western India. She s a Dalit artist who has for long years documented the rural women s movement in her area and beyond in her drawings. These unique picturesmore than 200 of themtell stories of the involvement of women from her village, and from the Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, the NGO she works with, in campaigns for women s rights, for economic empowerment, for resistance to globalizing corporations.
In one sequence of pictures, Radhaben receives a phone call inviting her to a meeting abroad, and she draws the entire journey from village to town to airport to the international destination and her first ride in an elevator. In another, she depicts the Chipko movement of the 1970s against deforestation; in a third, the fragmentation of fields and farming activity as a result of globalization.
This unusual and beautiful document provides that rare thing, a political perspective from below and a vibrant portrait of the rural women s movement in India."
Brief description: Radhaben Garwa has been drawing and painting the women's movement for the past sixteen years.
Review Quotes: "The women in Picture This! are sketched in brilliant splashes of color, bringing back the familiar image of the Gujarat and the nearby Rajasthan countryside: the desert's sandy browns and greys are lit up by the exuberant yellows, greens, reds and pinks of the long-skirted women. But what I love most is the expressions on their faces. Garva draws each one from memory, and they radiate mischief, intelligence, friendship, determination, skepticism, individuality."-- "Granta"