Shades of women is a social, cultural and political ART project that celebrates women.
In Indian society, women are considered to be goddesses. Auspicious, holy and many other words come to mind that put women on a pedestal. The society weighs them down with the burden of perfection. But Goddesses are women too.
This project is an attempt to redefine the term Goddess and make it more inclusive of the different human attributes of Goddesses.
According to Indian culture, Navratri is the time when Durga, the Mother Goddess of the Hindus is celebrated for 9 days - each day associated to 9 of her manifestations called Navdurga. And each of her manifestations is associated to stories from the Hindu mythology that is a testament of many human qualities imbibed in goddesses.
This project takes those 9 mythological stories and reimagines them to interpret the different aspects of Durga associated with each day to illustrate modern day women, and make these stories relatable.
Art is meant to be expressive, of ideas and beliefs. This project takes a political stance as it observes the role of gender in society, and re-articulates the conventional theories in the light of modern day feminism.
Shade 1 - Carefree
Shade 2 - Purpose
Shade 3 - Success
Shade 4 - Power
Shade 5 - Life
Shade 6 - Fire
Shade 7 - Rage
Shade 8 - Balance
Shade 9 - Enlightenment
Celebrating Indian Goddesses
We celebrate womanhood through this project, and acknowledge the different forms of woman. But also wanted to take this project beyond that and use it as an opportunity to celebrate all those women who have dared to be brave and strong enough to retain their originality and uniqueness and stood against the norms that tend to easily influence and adulterate the world.
Rashmi Daga - Founder of an Indian food based startup called Freshmenu
Ankita Vashishtha - CEO of women-centric Venture capital fund called Saha fund.
Falguni Nayar - Founder of an Indian beauty retail startup called Nykaa
Role: Creative Direction, Brand design
Contribution: Concept creation, Brand Identity, Art Direction, Illustration, Creative writing, Website design
Collaborators: Gaurav Hablani, Deepti Pai, Divya Negi, Aditi Basrur, Vayajanthi Priya, Aishwarya Nigam and Shivi Singhal
Contribution: Concept creation, Brand Identity, Art Direction, Illustration, Creative writing, Website design
Collaborators: Gaurav Hablani, Deepti Pai, Divya Negi, Aditi Basrur, Vayajanthi Priya, Aishwarya Nigam and Shivi Singhal
A Cartoon Mango Project.
