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Dr. Indu Antony conducted a workshop on Women’s Safety in Public Spaces for Grades 7 and 8 at Ekya School, BTM Layout campus.
The students learned about feminist geography which involves planning of spaces to allow all genders to visit and explore spaces safely and comfortably. Dr. Antony spoke about the steps students can take to ensure their own safety and of others in public spaces and about her Bangalore based project, Cecilia’ED. The student’s take away was how this project can be carried forward in small ways and be adopted in smaller communities in order to protect themselves and others from gender-based violence.
Her project Cecilia’ED is all about a superhero with cats, Cecilia, who is on the spree to make all possible places accessible to women without any fear. Cecilia is also breaking the superhero stereotype while making the world a safer place. She narrated the idea of her project through this story of an unusual superhero to ensure that the children could relate and comprehend the situation sensibly. The interesting part of the Cecila project is to allow access to previously male-centric places for all genders.
The children got to learn a great deal about public safety and explored feminism. They also learned how to deal with situations when they are in unsafe places.
The students were well educated about dealing with unsafe places in public. Dr. Antony also shared an SOS number and details of how to contact the necessary authorities in case of emergency.
Indu Antony is an artist based out of Bangalore, India. Born and raised in a conventional Indian family from Kerala, India, she overcame various social obligations to pursue her forms of expressions. She has hence been working with individuals from the fringes of society. She is known to explore tonalities of inward discussions which later on bursts out into the communal spaces. Her work comprises of understanding feministic stands which gives way to performances and installations.
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