Reimagining Kerala As A Free, Feminist Utopia Through This NFT Artwork

Image Courtesy: Rebecca Rechana Paul

Utopian Dystopia is a multidisciplinary festival based in Kochi that celebrates art, tech and design. This one-of-a-kind festival is attempting to provide a platform for artists from across the Indian subcontinent and the globe to showcase their artwork following the theme of a ‘utopian dystopia’.

Artists through their work are to communicate their perspectives of either a Utopian or Dystopian future. Currently working on her graduation film with Studio EEKSAURUS, one such local artist is Rebecca Rechana Paul whose NFT strays away from a cyberpunk or technically advanced perspective of the future and is about women in utopian Kerala.

She draws her inspiration from an act well known to women across the globe — ‘sadacharam’ or moral policing. The artwork is inspired by her personal experience of living under a hostel’s curfew while studying in Trivandrum where women were subjected to a 6:30 PM curfew and men could come in and out anytime. She believes, the only aspect that Kerala society needs to improve upon is the moral policing that women are subjected to on daily basis.

Envisioned while observing women every day in the ladies compartment of Mumbai locals, her artwork portrays a wild fantasy involving ordinary Kerala women who live on the lines of what an ‘ideal women’ is (otherwise known as ‘kulastree sankalpam’) as written by men.

She believes that the spirit of women in Mumbai contrasts rather starkly with Kerala — where moral policing is abundant and freedom for women is limited.