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There’s something almost ritualistic about the way women warn each other when a bra strap peeks out in public. A gesture, a gentle tug, a look that says, “Cover up.” I've even had strangers take liberty to tuck it in for me. Indian women have grown up hearing this warning; a coded message wrapped in concern but laced with something deeper. The implication is clear: conceal, correct, conform. It’s as if that thin strip of fabric holds a scandalous secret and that secret is, we have breasts! Any visible reference to which is a breach of decorum.
This tension between concealment and visibility; autonomy and surveillance, is precisely what 'My Peeking, Red Bra Strap' interrogates. The exhibition, bringing together a powerful collective of contemporary artists, challenges a patriarchal system that enforces shame around the female body. Rooted in India’s social fabric yet speaking to a universal experience, the exhibition tackles cultural politics that dictate how women’s bodies should be seen or not seen.
The artists, each with distinct yet interwoven approaches, examine the politics of the body, sexuality, and the ways in which femininity is both celebrated and suppressed. Kolkata-based Moutushi Chakraborty visualizes the feminine body as a contested space, examining its evolution from the colonial to post-colonial era. Kanchan Chander revels in the power of the female form, her depictions of the female torso evolving from stark, somber expressions to bold, embellished assertions of ownership and joy.
Dipali Gupta dives into Foucauldian biopolitics, (the intersection between political, economic, judicial power and the individual's bodily autonomy) using abstraction and eroticism to dismantle myths around female pleasure, reproduction, and identity. Her work critiques the patriarchal structures that reduce women to their reproductive functions, demanding a space for autonomous desire. Heeral Trivedi plays with the tension between figuration and abstraction, while Manmeet Devgun, a performance artist and poet, channels personal experiences of loss, desire, and survival into her work.
Other notable artists include Dianna Mohapatra, who reimagines domestic skills as aesthetic tools for feminist discourse, and Aninda Singh, whose work explores humanity’s exploitative relationship with nature through an eco-feminist lens. Gia Singh Arora, working across film and performance, explores the politics of intimacy, while Shantanu Sagara examines the emotional imprints left on spaces and bodies.
Indu Antony, known for creating India's first drag king photoseries, 'ManiFest' presents a radical reimagination of identity and visibility, while poet and artist Radha Gomaty brings mythic storytelling into the mix, using layers of material and meaning. Mithu Sen, a conceptual artist known for disrupting power structures by exposing the hierarchical of language, forces viewers to reconsider the very way we consume and interpret art. Keerthana Kunnath’s deconstructions of post-colonial media and Sonia Khurana’s deeply introspective, body-oriented work add further subtext to the exhibition’s themes.
My Peeking, Red Bra Strap lays bare the absurdity of cultural taboos, the insidious nature of gendered expectations, and the quiet yet persistent ways women push back against them. It unveils this small act of hiding the strap as a symptom of larger structures of control — of who gets to exist freely, and who must always be mindful of their presence. Through the works of the artists it demands a world where women are not reduced to their visibility or invisibility, but seen as whole, autonomous beings.
The exhibition is on view at APRE Art House in Mumbai till April 19. Follow them here to learn more.
