Blank Noise is a volunteer-run community, a public, and an online art project aimed at confronting street sexual harassment ("eve-teasing") and violence in India. Initiated in 2003, founder Jasmeen Patheja reveals, "As an art student I was deeply interested and motivated by art practices that could work with communities, that could exist in public, that could heal, provoke, question. I was interested in work that could be built via participation, that could be a dialogue or a collaboration."*
"We don't like to think of it as an audience, but rather a community we are engaging with. It's always about the participation, always about reaching out for a kind of engagement."
The project features contributors who use various forms of media (video testimonials, clothing, poetry, images, demonstrations, spray painting) to address, spark discussion, and create a public debate around issues of sexual violence and street harassment. Some of its specific actions/events include a blogathon in 2006, during which bloggers were asked to share their experiences of street sexual harassment, resulting in hundreds of participants and a viral spread of testimonials. Blank Noise lives as an online project through its active
blog. It has also spawned sister blogs,
Blank Noise Action Heroes and
Blank Noise Spectators.
