Isha Yadav, Assistant Professor at Delhi University, is a writer and an artist. She is also a performance poet and a yoga enthusiast. Her idea of starting the concept like an ‘art slam‘, a community started for art, artists and enthusiast is called Delhi Art Slam.
Isha has also taken an initiative called Humans Of Anxiety partnered with The Education Tree. They are creating space for people who suffer from anxiety to share their stories and help them through art. She even illustrates the stories received from people,so people can look at it in 2D and call it by it’s name. It’s really empowering. Recently, a short film, All I Want, for which Isha wrote subtitles for, won the best short film award at Cannes Film Festival.
In Conversation with Isha Yadav:
Is teaching your passion? Do you want to make your career growth in this itself?
Teaching is one of the few things I’ve always aspired to do for the world and me. Teaching is hard, challenging and is always growing, it’s infinite. I don’t restrict teaching and learning to a classroom, neither do I aspire to be a Guru. In today’s day and age, a teacher or a professor can’t be a guru, you have to be a performer, an entertainer. Teaching at college gives me a chance to make a difference in the minds of younger generations. I lead them, encourage them to follow their own suit, to be aware of the world we live in. Not just to bring them at par with syllabus, but make them well aware, positive and sensitive adults. I’ve always aspired to be that kind of teacher who makes a difference. I’d like to never stop teaching.
What made you to start “Art Slam”? How does it work?
Delhi Art Slam is a community for art, artists and enthusiasts in the city. We’re first of the kind. We’re a small group of people coming together to bring art to public spaces that are open and participative for all. We invite photographers, artists, painters, doodlers, illustrators and sculptors to come and co-curate a gallery, an exhibition, an art-walkaway, a showcase of a kind. By bringing art to the ’slam’ culture, we’re trying to create a collective that fits better and well for all underground, contemporary and all visual artists, trying to give them encouragement and due space to their work. The gallery we create is a makeshift arrangement. It is modelled for our basic principle, that art does not require elite setting of a gallery to be displayed. It can be anywhere and everywhere. We use basic prop, and huddle up all work together to make it an exhibition and put up a great weekend for everyone.
It came out from having no art-friends around. All my friends looked at Art as an outsider, the reason for which was the negligible rendezvous with art. So I thought of creating a collective that fits better and well for all art community as well as serve as Step 1 for outsiders and we decided to add live-art sessions, performance art, workshops and art-therapy.
You are also a performance poet. Tell us about your poetries.
My poetries are very personal, introspective and honest. They range from varieties of moods, temperaments. I write widely on my anxiety, on depression, on love loss. I also think poetry is a medium of dissent, so a lot of poetries have feminist themes, around body politics, oppression and emotional abuse, I also think poetry cannot exist in vacuum, therefore, I also indulge in political opinions.
Have you done any Art Projects till now?
I’m currently pursuing an art project with Ali Monis, a friend, it’s called “Art Touch Lives”. We’re painting 10 public walls in Delhi and writing messages for mental support. The audience we target with these messages are the people who mentally vulnerable and are seeking cosmic mental and emotional support by looking at these signages. The first one is at Shahpur Jat, it reads: ‘you will be okay’. These messages are in simple English and Hindi, they’re hard-hitting and comforting. We all want to know there is something powerful looking after us, this is how I want to reach every single human being in the city.
Tell us about your initiative “Humans of Anxiety” with The Education Tree.
Humans of Anxiety is a brilliant initiative. It is a collective for people who suffer from the disorder. It is for anyone who has experienced anxiety either in themselves or in their loved ones. This is where they tell us their story and we listen. The project is art-driven. We invite people, writers and poets to share their stories on anxiety, how it happens, how they live and die everyday. In this initiative, I shall try working closely with each narrative, or story that we receive and develop it into an art form so it becomes easier for people to identify with. Having a visual inception of the trauma helps strengthen our power over it. We can look at it in 2-dimension and call it by its name. We can put a description tag on it and it begins to work as an essential aid for understanding the pattern of anxiety. This is how it closely has a therapeutic effect. This is how art helps in healing. I shall work on language, self-expression which is symbolic and try giving it a face, an illustration, an art-form or a photograph.
Why Periodlogue? What does it do?
Periodlogue is a local period support group. It’s a WhatsApp chat group with about 70 women on it. Women, strangers from different walks of life came to be a part of this group and comfort, guide and listen to women on their period problems, PMSing, and bleeding days. It was started for every women, to give them a non-judgemental rant space for those days. Evolving from the principle, the group developed to coming out for different stories on body issues, assault experiences, rape culture, depression and clinical anxiety, PCOD, ayurvedic remedies, forming a strong bond of bloodhood. The groups has forged deepest of friendships and made us all meet most empathetic sisters. We don’t feel alone anymore.
Periodlogue was a successful experiment, I implore everyone to start their own local period support groups and give women from different cities, and cultures, a space for sharing their quest with bleeding and being a women.
What are you greatest achievements till now?
Honestly, I can’t put a finger on any one thing. I’m really proud of excelling in my education and becoming a Professor in one of the most prestigious universities in the country. I’m proud of being able to write for Terribly Tiny Tales, country’s most read digital story platform. I’m proud to translate and subtitle a short film called ‘All I Want’ that won the best short film award at Cannes Film Festival, 2017. I’m proud of being able to bring art to the growing slam culture in the world, Delhi Art Slam, is the first of it’s kind. I’m aware and thankful to the privileges I’ve received from family and friends for support and making my own mark. It always is a joint effort and victory.
You are working on writing a book named as “Arranged Marriage”? Why this topic?
I’m curating this novel with 10 writers, each submitting a story of their own. We’re calling it Project: Arranged Marriage (for now). Arranged Marriage is a kind of gamble and a very tricky game, if you’re an Indian upper middle class girl (or a guy) of marriageable age, you will learn. There are tricks and selling points and our society and culture is slowly poisoning everyone with. The fact that the whole concept comes with patriarchy downing certain dowry, adjustments, and freak show that the whole process follows makes it very interesting to look at. From prospective grooms, to relatives, to castes and astrology, to the view of society, to the capital involved, makes it an intriguing subject to throw light on. I’m specifically looking at the rise of matrimonial agents in our culture, the frauds and stereotypes, that the whole concept of arranged marriage is susceptible to.