"You planned to tame a swallow, to hold her
In the long summer of your love so that she would forget
Not the raw seasons alone, and the homes left behind, but
Also her nature, the urge to fly, and the endless
Pathways of the sky..."
— Kamala Das, The Old Playhouse
"There is no such thing as a woman who doesn't work," Caroline Criado-Perez wrote in her book 'Invisible Women'. "There is only a woman who isn't paid for her work."
The undervaluing of women's work is linked to historical assumptions about women's 'natural' skills which make them more suitable to particular types of work — such as caring, cooking, and cleaning — which, therefore, require no formal level of skill. This kind of gender-biased thinking perpetuates misogynistic ideas that the work women do is to supplement family income, and does not require decent pay.
'Unseen Shadows', a new exhibition of recent works by visual artists Richa Arya and Deena Pindoria curated by Lekha Poddar, explores these often-unacknowledged realms of women's identity and labour, navigating the undervalued and invisibilised contributions by women that shape both domestic and industrial spaces. At the intersection of materiality and socio-political critique, the exhibition brings into focus the narratives of erasure, undervaluation, and trivialisation of women's work.
Through their distinct practices, Richa Arya and Deena Pindoria interrogate the conditions of gendered labour and visibility.
Deena Pindoria’s Purdah Series (2024) focuses on the complex and veiled experiences of women living under the purdah practice which originated with Muslims and was later adopted by various Hindu communities, especially in India. The purdahp practice involves the seclusion of women from public observation by means of concealing clothing (including the veil or 'purdah') and by the use of high-walled enclosures, screens, curtains, and segregated quarters within the home.
Through the use of natural dyes, indigenous handwoven textiles like kala cotton and kota doria, and contemporary mediums such as acrylic paints and custom-designed wood blocks, Pindoria creates a layered narrative of seclusion and identity in her mixed media work. Pindoria’s work investigates the physical and metaphorical layers that obscure women's identities, exploring how societal norms have imposed alienating rules upon them. Her muted tones and semi-transparent fabrics evoke how purdah functions as both a literal and symbolic barrier in women's lives.
In contrast, Richa Arya’s work highlights the precarious existence of migrant women labourers in industrial spaces, where their contributions are not only invisible but devalued. By employing rusted metals, symbolic of neglect, and polished brass — a material of value — Arya's sculptural objects draw attention to the dualities of labour and worth, invoking the tensions between the discarded and the precious.
About The Artists
Deena Pindoria (b. 1991, Madhapur, Kutch) is a visual artist based in Baroda. She completed her Post Diploma in Visual Arts with a focus on graphic arts from M.S. University (MSU), Vadodara. She received the Silver Medal Smt. Manekba Paritoshik Award in Painting in 2017. Deena Pindoria is the winner of the Space Studio Winter Residency in Baroda (2022) and has been honoured with the Grant Scholarship Kala Sakshi Art Scholarships in 2022, as well as the Space118 Fine Art Grant in 2023-24. Follow Deena here.
Richa Arya (b. 1997, Samalkha, Haryana) is an accomplished sculptor known for her intricate work with repurposed scrap metal, reflecting the domestic worlds of women in urban Haryana and the labor of migrant women in Delhi. She earned her BFA in Sculpture from Kurukshetra University in 2018 and her MFA in Sculpture from the College of Art, University of Delhi in 2020. Arya continues to explore and critique the gendered dimensions of labor through her art. Her studio is located in Greater Noida. Follow Richa here.
Unseen Shadows: Mask and Mirror runs from October 5 till November 4 at Exhibit 320, F-320, Lado Sarai, New Delhi. Find more information about the exhibition at Exhibit 320's Instagram here.
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