To commemorate International Women’s Day on March 8, 2024, the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Delhi is showcasing Shakti: Fair & Fierce, an extraordinary exhibition in collaboration with the Museum of Sacred Art (MOSA), Belgium. The exhibition brings together over 100 works by 55 contemporary female artists, offering a powerful exploration of feminine energy through a wide range of artistic expressions, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, digital art, and embroidery.
The partnership with MOSA adds a unique dimension to the exhibition, as the museum is known for its dedication to promoting art that embodies the sacred and spiritual. MOSA’s involvement has enabled the exhibition to expand its scope and delve deeper into the concept of Shakti—the divine feminine principle that is central to many world philosophies. With MOSA’s international perspective, the exhibition connects local artistic traditions with global interpretations of femininity, spirituality, and power.
Through the collaboration with MOSA, the exhibition embraces a multi-layered approach to presenting the many facets of Shakti. The works featured are not just expressions of creativity, but also meditations on the nature of feminine strength and resilience. From intricate embroideries that reflect cultural heritage to modern digital media installations, the exhibition reflects MOSA’s mission to bridge the sacred and the contemporary, drawing on traditions while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of artistic expression.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is Saadiya Kochar’s photographic series, inspired by Kaifi Azmi’s poem Aurat (Woman). Her images capture the everyday resilience of Kashmiri women, offering a raw, poignant portrayal of life amidst conflict. This thought-provoking work, along with others like Charuvi Agrawal’s experimental digital pieces and Shanthamani Muddaiah’s powerful charcoal installations, exemplifies the depth and breadth of perspectives MOSA strives to promote through its collaborations.
Additionally, the exhibition features veteran artists like Madhvi Parekh and Jayasri Burman, who have long contributed to the dialogue around women’s roles in society, alongside emerging voices such as Keerti Pooja and Sonal Varshneya, whose fresh interpretations of Shakti bring new vitality to the theme. With MOSA’s support, these artists are able to present their work on an international stage, fostering a dialogue that transcends geographic and cultural boundaries.
Shakti: Fair & Fierce, in collaboration with MOSA, is not just a celebration of women in art—it’s a testament to the enduring power of the feminine principle as a source of creativity and transformation. By partnering with the Museum of Sacred Art, the exhibition bridges the local and the global, the traditional and the contemporary, offering a holistic exploration of what it means to embody Shakti. Through this synergy, the exhibition captures the essence of feminine energy in all its manifestations, making it a truly compelling tribute to the strength and spirit of women everywhere.
Shakti, a source of all energy, is personified as a divine goddess, mother earth, and feminine principle, not just in Hindu philosophy but in theologies around the world. Her dynamic energy is the spring for the creation, sustenance, demolition, and regeneration of life in the universe. Fair and fierce, the nurturing and compassionate woman is Shakti. Her fair streak is symbolised as love, warmth, generosity, and fertility, not just the colour of her skin as often misrepresented in advertisements, movies, and media. Her fierce aspect signifies a resilience that can confront injustice and violence.
Shakti: Fair and Fierce represents different narratives and diverse perspectives as it celebrates feminine creativity and empowerment. It explores feminine voice and vision through a broad spectrum of human experience, in a rapidly changing scenario. The artworks, sieved through an inclusive feminine gaze, reflect the artists’ own and their associates’ struggles, triumphs, dreams, desires, and ambitions. No longer confined to restrictive societal norms limited within the familial world, contemporary women engage with issues of interest to the larger society, including men, women, and people of all shades and groupings, across diverse domains and affiliations. The varied contours, complexities, concerns and contradictions of a woman’s world are presented in a contemporary global context constantly in flux. The women use this creative forum for self-expression, dialogue, bonding, and solidarity. It helps bring their multifaceted work — generally taken less seriously and often misattributed to men or forgotten by recorded history — to the attention of the public, collectors, gallerists, and media in India and abroad. The artworks create sparks in society and provide women with an opportunity to showcase their creative acumen and champion the dispossessed.
With its focus on the world of women and is dynamics, the engaging collection facilitates equity sans gender, age, region, class, colour, art/craft or high/low art dichotomy. The art exhibition and its catalogue feature varied genres, styles, and materials, that articulate the voices and visions of women artists from across India. Most of the works on display are part of the collection of the Belgium-based Museum of Sacred Art (MOSA), some made especially for the project. The ensemble includes over a hundred multi-layered works by over thirty-five female artists currently working in different genres and living in various Indian cities. The creative trajectories bare the feminine soul and spirit. By interfacing the divine with the demonic, the sacred with the secular, local with global, or pleasing with provocative, the works take the viewer beyond the pre-mediated male gaze and engage with society as a cohesive whole.
