Aishwarya Guha

Aishwarya Guha, aka Oishorjyo, is a writer, researcher and theatre-maker based in Goa. She has been working on creating gender empowering narratives through poetry, visual art, theatre and non-fiction pieces. She is the founder of Loose Women Collective where women come together online for monthly meetings to discuss issues related to gender. Through this project titled Watching You, Watching Me she will explore the challenging relationship women have with visibility online.

Over the years women have had a complex relationship with visibility online. With the collusion of sexuality, gender politics, state brutality and surveillance - both ‘presence’ and ‘absence’ of woman on the internet are statements to be taken seriously. According to Oishorjyo, one common thread that runs through all the narratives of women across the board is the story of trauma that they have experienced at some time or the other online. They have been endlessly trolled, abused, and threatened with violence and rape - being punished it seems for occupying the space they have. The abuse against women also serves as a silent lesson - a warning, she says, to those who are watching, to suppress their selves, desires and opinions, if they want to remain unharmed. “The internet”, she concludes “is no place for a woman.”

Oishorjyo’s attempt with this project is to reverse this matrix and bring to light stories of 25 women who have successfully turned the tables and reversed the gaze. These stories will explore the narratives of women, who, aware of the hyperreality of the internet, have used its layered mechanisms to flip the power structure. They will be researched pieces of non-fiction which will then be recorded in the voices of other women. They will then be strung together in the form of a 30 to 60-minute audio-drama, much like the Modern Love podcasts of the New York Times. The drama, she hopes, will not only make explicit the difficult relationship that women have had with visibility on the internet but more importantly highlight the ways in which women have dared to defy and re-imagine their relationship with it.

The outcome of this grant will be the audio-drama. The grantee’s deliverables to IFA will be the audio-drama together with the visual and textual documentation of the process.  

This grant is made possible under the special initiative 25x25, with support from lead donor Kshirsagar-Apte Foundation, and philanthropy partners, Titan Company Limited, Priya Paul, and Sethu Vaidyanathan.