Ashlin Sara Paul

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA under Explorations will involve experiments in the making of a graphic narrative in mixed-media book form, by aggregating personal stories regarding women’s health and the social stigmas surrounding it, from a queer artist’s perspective. Ashlin Sara Paul is the Coordinator for this project. 

Ashlin Sara Paul is a creative practitioner, writer, art history student, and an aspiring researcher, whose creative journey is between literature and art, through mediums like graphic novels, concrete poetry, cut-up texts and comparative literary studies. Ashlin did their MFA in History of Art from Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan and their MA in English from The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad. They co-curated the exhibition Nakshi: Eclectic Realms of Creation, at Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata in 2024 and exhibited as part of FICA’s TEXTXET workshop, Delhi in 2023. They have illustrated the books such as Guardians of the Forest (2023), Myth of the Wild Gaur (2022), After Hours (2022), Eye Am in Denial (2021) and Nimishaardhangal (2019), and published their writings in the anthology Lost and Found (2021). Given their experience, Ashlin Sara Paul is best placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

This project will involve the making of graphic narratives juxtaposed with multi-media literary explorations including mediums of textile, sculpture, drawing, cut-up text and video incorporated into a large book-form. The content for this mixed-media literary exploration will be through collecting shared experiences of women and queer people, including the trauma associated with deeply personal experiences, such as urinating in public spaces, and the stigma associated with it. The project is located in the socio-political context of women with complications of menstruation and prone to urinary tract infections, the lack of clean toilets, as well as the social stigma associated with their bodies, and the fear of male gaze preventing them from having the liberty to urinate in spaces that are so readily accessible to men for the same purposes. The emotional affect of these collected experiences can range from humour, to traumatic to tragicomic.  

The artistic process includes the making of a large book-like form combining the tactility of textile (possibly applique and embroidery) as well as interactive sculptures (made of found materials) and video works, all contributing to a larger graphic narrative. While breaking the conventions of the graphic novel, the project will still utilise the semiotic potential of the panels, as the “gutter” or the empty spaces between the panels where meanings are generated in the mind of the reader/ viewer, as implied continuity clues. It can be argued that the “gutter” space is the primary structural element of graphic narrative that the project will pivot on.

The outcome of the project will be an interactive and engaging book-form preferably set in a public place, combining different mediums like sculpture, textiles, and video, contributing to a larger graphic narrative. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be documentation of the artistic process of making the graphic narrative book form.   

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Practice programme in the manner in which it attempts to play around with multiple materials to challenge a story-telling form, by bringing together deeply personal stories, of women and queer persons, challenging social stigmas.    

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm by convening an online gathering of artists coordinating Explorations projects. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This project is made possible with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment Fund.