This artwork documents a timeline of queer history & mythology of the Indian subcontinent, by Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin, on display as part of MAC’s current exhibition When Speech Is Forced Down, Art Must Speak.
Dipa an independent filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist and curator based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She received her BFA from the Institute of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka. She accepts art as activism and characterised by the theme of deconstruction, gender-bending and revisiting mythology. Dipa’s artistic vocabulary draws from surrealism, Islamic - Hindu and Buddhist iconography, and South-Asian pictorial forms such as Kalighat and Madhubani painting.
"If any older woman has sexual relation with a younger girl (virgin), that older woman's head will be shaved off, two of her fingers will be cut off and she will be forced to ride a donkey (symbol of shame) around the village." - 370 of Chapter Eight, Manusmriti (Hinduism)
‘Pink Myth of Hell’ was the title of Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin’s first solo exhibition which represents her thesis and hypothesis of gender, sexuality & religion. It is an Art, Archive and Activism project. In light of research and reference, Yasmin has the series of work to question the traditional faiths & beliefs of individuals in the homophobic culture, which are encased with strict religious punishments and sin-virtue and keep on age by age. Which not just consistently forestalls us to reveal gender identity yet the loss of a guiltless being.
Pink Myth of Hell is a series to question the traditional faiths & beliefs of individuals in the patriarchal society & homophobic culture, which are encased with strict religious punishments and sin-virtue and keep on age by age. Which not just consistently forestalls us to reveal gender identity yet the loss of a guiltless being.
Pink is not a color here, it is just a social idea. In light of research and reference, Yasmin has a series of photography work to question the traditional faiths & beliefs. This series is about all the hellish rules and superstitions created on women for religious and social reasons from history to the present.
Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin, an activist of asexual orientation, is one of the most difficult experiences and struggles she has faced in her personal life, that is to break the myth that 'all women are asexual'. In a society that does not recognize women's sexual drive, it is very risky for an asexual woman to survive there. However, in order to survive well, the artist took all the oblique experiences as her inspiration.