If there's one woman you need to read about today, it should be Aqui Thami!
“Every day I wake up with all the women in my life holding me, protecting me, and loving me. When I love myself it is their love I reflect. My body from all the hair on it to the skin I live in is covered in their names.”
Aqui Thami is a head-strong feminist known for raising powerful voice against the harassment of women. She has done exemplary work in the field of art and literature. Adding to the list of women that are soft in tone but tough in the head, Aqui is an extraordinary human, and here’s why!
She is a unique artist who believes in creating art based on issues such as gender discrimination, caste system, anti-racist feminism, etc. She has promoted and published women-centered zines, prints, poster, and pictures!
As an activist, she has worked on countless projects on social development and women empowerment. One of her popular projects is The Dharavi Room—a step towards the development of women and children of Dharavi—Asia’s largest slum! Under this project, art is used as a powerful medium to heal and interact with women and children.
‘The Bombay Underground’ is her other initiative that puts indefatigable efforts to keep creativity alive. This initiative was started in 1999 by Aqui, along with Himanshu S, which independently publishes zines and other artworks. They also organize various art exhibitions and zine festivals in order to foster their love for independent publishing.
One of her popular initiatives is called The Sister Library—it is a traveling library which is solely dedicated to the work of women writers. Each and every book is hand-picked by Thami. The idea to start this unusual library came to Aqui when she noticed that not many books are written by women were given as much attention as those written by men.
She told a source, “I saw that women did not even make a fourth of my collection, and this really made me feel like shit, so I made a conscious effort to start reading books by women exclusively around five years back. Slowly, my collection increased and I had to share it with the world to allow for space to not only celebrate the works of women but also allow for an experience to be physically surrounded by works of women in such a huge number.”
Incredible isn’t it?
In 2018, Thami took her traveling library on a tour where she visited 6 Indian cities to raise funds for setting up a community in Mumbai. Thami was quite happy with the tour. She reckoned that way women supported her is what women empowerment is all about! Real women support other women!
She came up with another unique yet empowering idea. She, along with few others, created a hundred posters with sentences such as “A woman was harassed here,” and “You aren’t giving me a compliment.” Then, she put them on different places in Mumbai where she and her friends or relatives were harassed.
Hailing from Darjeeling, Thami currently lives in Mumbai, and works tirelessly for the empowerment of women and marginalized community. Aqui has also recently completed a residency with Victoria & Albert Research Institute (VARI), in London. During her time in London, she noticed that people there were actually interested in learning about art and her initiatives more than Indians.
She adds, “In my experience, people in London really wanted to listen. They valued my perception, something that doesn’t really happen in my own country. Being an indigenous woman, I am often silenced in India. It was also nice not having to experience harassment every single day!”
She also collaborated with two Indian-Canadian women who turned her art into a clothing line called NORBLACKNORWHITE.
'I am not a public space': Aqui with one of her poster interventions in Mumbai
In spite of these achievements, Thami feels that her art is often silenced in India and that, it is understood mostly by affluent people, which often breaks her heart.
However, as determined as she is, there is no stopping this amazing woman from achieving her goals.
