Blank Noise
INAFI-2018-August.jpeg | Credits: Jasmeen Patheja
INAFI-JAN10.jpg | Credits: Jasmeen Patheja
INAFI-street.jpg | Credits: photographer: Jasmeen Patheja
Blank_Noise-_Profile.pdf
Blank-Noise-MeetToSleep.jpg | Credits: Jasmeen Patheja
Action_Hero_Nia_and_Viji.jpg | Credits: Jasmeen Patheja
Blank Noise is a growing community of Action Sheroes / Heroes / Theyroes ; citizens taking agency to end sexual and gender-based violence. Blank Noise designs methodologies to build testimonials of sexual violence. Blank Noise also designs public participatory projects to shift relationships of women / non-binary persons with their bodies and cities; from fear to belonging, from shame to pride. All of Blank Noise is built on the lived experiences of its community.
Most women and girls, in India and beyond, have been raised in an environment that warns them to “be careful and to protect yourself,” and to not draw attention to yourself. This translates to: “If you’ve experienced sexual violence, you weren’t careful enough and you deserve it.” As a result, most experiences of sexual violence are silenced and untold, due to the fear of being blamed, judged, and shamed. An environment of victim blame justifies and perpetuates sexual violence.
The I Never Ask For It mission is a long-term effort to end victim blame by building testimonies of clothing. Action Sheroes bring in the garment they wore when they experienced sexual violence. The garment is a witness, memory, and voice to the community members' experience. The project envisions ten thousand garments assembled at sites of public significance by 2024. The project is motivated by the feminist solidarities it can be built by and the healing it may offer to those who shape it with their testimonies. The project works to create a place for an unnamed yet unforgotten memory. The opposite of being blamed is being believed. When our memories are revisited and released, they deserve to be kept safe. I Never Ask For It is an invitation to release if it serves the speaker, and a commitment to listen for those who witness it. The project Meet To Sleep mobilizes communities of women across identities to sleep under open skies. The community fights fear with the right to trust. Meet To Sleep is a conversation with fear that demands the right to be defenseless. It embodies #INeverAskForIt.
Blank Noise is a growing community of Action Sheroes / Heroes / Theyroes ; citizens taking agency to end sexual and gender-based violence. Blank Noise designs methodologies to build testimonials of sexual violence. Blank Noise also designs public participatory projects to shift relationships of women / non-binary persons with their bodies and cities; from fear to belonging, from shame to pride. All of Blank Noise is built on the lived experiences of its community.
Most women and girls, in India and beyond, have been raised in an environment that warns them to “be careful and to protect yourself,” and to not draw attention to yourself. This translates to: “If you’ve experienced sexual violence, you weren’t careful enough and you deserve it.” As a result, most experiences of sexual violence are silenced and untold, due to the fear of being blamed, judged, and shamed. An environment of victim blame justifies and perpetuates sexual violence.
The I Never Ask For It mission is a long-term effort to end victim blame by building testimonies of clothing. Action Sheroes bring in the garment they wore when they experienced sexual violence. The garment is a witness, memory, and voice to the community members' experience. The project envisions ten thousand garments assembled at sites of public significance by 2024. The project is motivated by the feminist solidarities it can be built by and the healing it may offer to those who shape it with their testimonies. The project works to create a place for an unnamed yet unforgotten memory. The opposite of being blamed is being believed. When our memories are revisited and released, they deserve to be kept safe. I Never Ask For It is an invitation to release if it serves the speaker, and a commitment to listen for those who witness it. The project Meet To Sleep mobilizes communities of women across identities to sleep under open skies. The community fights fear with the right to trust. Meet To Sleep is a conversation with fear that demands the right to be defenseless. It embodies #INeverAskForIt.
Thousands of Action Sheroes / Heroes/ Theyroes who have shaped Blank Noise with their labor, experience, insight, reflection, and action, since 2003.
The community has comprised citizens across disciples, including bloggers also, journalists, writers, lawyers, college students, high school students, feminist allies working with their communities of women/girls and non-binary persons. Select individuals include: Annie Zaidi, Ratna Apnender, Atreyee Majumdar, Shuktara Lal, Insiya Poonawala, and Saptarshi Chakrabarty.
Feminist allies, organizations, and collectives have made projects proposed at Blank Noise their own, with the voice and experiences of their communities. Almost 50 feminist allies have built Meet To Sleep over the years.
Blank Noise office team between 2015-2022 has included: Eeshita Kapadiya, Vira Mistry, Abhaya Tatavarti, Somya Mata, Saanika Amembal, Harini, Damayanti Saha. Interns between 2007-2022. All volunteers between 2003- present.
Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology and Professor Geetha Narayanan: The project was initiated as a student final year graduation project at the art institute. Professor Narayanan was instrumental in equipping Jasmeen Patheja to imagine and work with the possibility of the artist's role in enabling social transformation. Patheja has also been an artist in residence at Srishti.
Srilatha Batliwala, a feminist thinker, has recently joined Blank Noise's advisory board.
Multiple institutions including the Visible Award (Judith Weilander and Matteo Lucchetti) , Ashoka Innovators for the Public Fellowship, TED Fellowship have contributed to the project.
With support from:
The project has been built through the collective labor of its community. Since 2003, the project has received support from the thousands of volunteers who have served, joined, and contributed to Blank Noise with their time, labor, and passion. Over the years, several members and friends of the project have also made small private donations to the project. Blank Noise was registered as a formal entity in late 2015. In recent years, the project has been reorganizing to build capacity to meet its artistic vision for I Never Ask For It and Meet To Sleep.
Since 2021 the artist has been commissioned by Azienda Specialie Palaexpo, Palazzo Dell Esposizioni Di Roma, in the framework of the project Orchestras of Transformation, curated by Locales and Visible. The commissioned project kickstarts the „I Never Ask For It” podcast towards building global feminist solidarities in resistance to victim blame.
2019 the artist received the prestigious Visible Award for socially engaged art practice for the project Blank Noise / I Never Ask For It.
2015 Blank Noise / Talk To Me project received the International Award for Public Art.
The artist received multiple forms of non-financial support from institutions including TED. Support was received in the form of coaching, to support fulfilling the artistic vision of the project. The TED fellowship offered multiple forms of non-financial resources that supported the practice, including a community of peers, change-makers, and mentors. Ashoka Innovators for the Public awarded a fellowship to Jasmeen Patheja in 2006. This fellowship has been instrumental in offering non-financial resources that strengthen the project and practice. Examples include being part of the Wellbeing Project, dedicated to social entrepreneurs' relationship with wellbeing, in a context where work is never 'complete', it is a movement and a life practice, and beyond the scope of a project-based approach.
Blank Noise is a growing community of Action Sheroes, Theyroes, Heroes; citizens and persons who are taking the agency to end sexual and gender-based violence. The community has comprised citizens across disciples, including bloggers also, journalists, writers, lawyers, college students, high school students, feminist allies working with their communities of women/girls and non-binary persons. Jasmeen Patheja (IN), an artist in public service, committed to ending violence against women, girls, and all persons, is the founder, facilitator of Blank Noise. She builds ideas and methodologies, for public and collective action. Patheja initiated Blank Noise as a student project in 2003. Over almost 20 years, Patheja worked with multiple communities and designed a wide range of interventions and methodologies, across various forms of media, to shift public consciousness and build ownership of gender-based violence.