A Conversation with Poulomi Basu (Maya: The Birth of a Superhero)
Who knew knocking down taboos could be so much fun? With Maya: The Birth of a Superhero, a VR piece that exhibited in the Immersive Competition, first edition at Cannes, and is currently available on Meta Quest, the UK-based Indian neurodiverse artist Poulomi Basu, along with her collaborator CJ Clarke, have crafted a coming of age tale that playfully tackles a topic usually discussed behind closed doors (if at all): menstruation. Indeed, with the titular, South Asian teen as our guide, we’re taken to a threatening land (contemporary London) filled with emotional minefields, forced to navigate everything from bullying classmates to a conservative mom for whom shaming comes easier than any expressions of love. Fortunately, Maya’s got some kickass girl moves – able to hurl tampons with Herculean strength! – which allow her (and us) to ultimately overcome insidious patriarchal stigma, the greatest hurdle of all.
Hammer to Nail: So I remember when we spoke back at CPH:DOX that you mentioned that guys tend to view Maya: The Birth of a Superhero differently than women do. Can you dig in a bit on that divide? How does whether or not an individual has experienced menstruation affect their reaction to the piece?
Poulomi Basu: Overwhelmingly we have had a positive response from both men and women, with great appreciation of the artistry of the experience and that this topic is being openly discussed. We have had some truly amazing reactions from men, who often talk about the journey that they are on as men to broaden their understanding; and also extremely deep responses from fathers with daughters.
Mostly women have emerged saying they feel very healed by the experience. Many have said that they wanted to stay in the experience longer, or wanted to go back in. This is quite something, as often people feel fatigued by their time in a headset. (Most of our audience have actually been surprised when they realize they’d been in the headset for over 30 minutes.) Women – though also many men – recognize that it is quite something for this subject to not only be openly expressed, but expressed with nuance and depth. It is the showing and interacting with this taboo that many respond positively and strongly to. It is not a passive experience, it is something embodied.
For boys and men it is really about confronting and immersing them in a subject and experience that they might not have much knowledge of (or at least not a very deep knowledge of). So on one level it is about giving them an experience that helps them to understand how it feels to have your period – or the shame that is often associated with having you period. On another level it’s about confronting them with a wider societal taboo around menstruation, and making them do things that it is unlikely that they would ever have done (such as touching a tampon).
We have just released the piece at the Meta Quest store, and some of the responses reveal the depth of the misogyny at play here: “Next level feminist garbage” was one male response, while another thought the piece disgusting because it explores menstruation. Though t is interesting that these early negative reactions came from the gaming community, which is heavily dominated by white Western men.
HtN:It also struck me that those of us viewing the piece in galleries or at festivals like Cannes are not your primary target audience. Are you presenting Maya: The Birth of a Superhero at schools or at other nontraditional venues where it can reach adolescent girls?
PB: Maya will be globally distributed through Meta Quest, which is the principal distribution method for interactive experiences and games. This in itself gives us a way to distribute the piece to a wide audience, both male and female, that would not perhaps regularly enter a gallery or attend a film festival.
In addition, we have just received funding from Unity for Humanity for the next, impact-based phase of the work. This will include creating an educational toolkit that will be freely distributed to schools and other such venues so that the piece can reach a wide audience beyond traditional channels. We will also be looking to develop an AR app that will work as part of this toolkit to allow further exploration of the piece, along with the stories and ideas raised in the work. It will also link Maya to the impact art project Blood Speaks, which I started in 2013, and the stories of the real women who inspired the experience.
This is really a piece for everyone – not just for young girls or an adolescent audience. We have designed it to appeal and be relatable to people of all ages. You can choose to raise your voice and activate at any age, and then empower and enable others to do the same.
HtN: I likewise remember being surprised by how much fun the piece is – something you emphasized as a crucial component of the work. Can you discuss the importance of play, and this almost satirical element? Was this always the plan from the start?
PB: Immersive experiences combine elements of cinema and theatre. They offer an embodied experience, but also something that exists spatially. In making the piece we were influenced by theatrical practice, such as Brecht and the ideas around theatre (and by extension the immersive realm) being a laboratory of social change.
But as Brecht knew, it needs to be entertaining. A work needs to be able to engage people at a variety of levels. It needs to have narrative cadence and depth that works on an emotional and intellectual level, combined with moments that jolt people into a more intellectual assessment of the “world” they are experiencing; to make them ask questions and reassess their own experience, and reflect on how the experience in the art-piece relates to their own life.
This piece questions notions of power, and what power means in our contemporary world and in the context of the superhero genre. What powers would we actually want a superhero to have? What powers would we want a superhero from the Global South to have? For me as an artist, I want the character of Maya to represent the majority world in a way that is reflective of our struggle. What we need is the powers we gave Maya: the power to create, transform and heal. As Maya says, “It is only through compassion that we can heal this broken world.”
I’ll add that care and resistance go hand in hand. And this perspective is rooted in a deep spirituality that is redolent not only of my own experience as a South Asian woman, but also reflective of philosophies to be found much more readily, in daily life and in southern cultures.
HtN: I’m also guessing that as a neurodiverse artist from the Global South, accessibility in all its forms might be top of mind for you. So what are some of the persistent challenges you face? And does working across a variety of mediums provide for more flexibility in navigating obstacles?
PB: Maya was inspired by my impact project Blood Speaks, which told the story of real women in Nepal and India affected by menstrual exile and other blood taboos. More often than not people would react by saying that this is something that can only exist in poor countries. With Maya we wanted to make people look at the taboos and stigmas that exist in the West but are often hidden in plain sight. So yes, experiential art is harder to distribute in the majority world, but the target audience for Maya is the West. It is set in London, and stars a character with power and agency coming to London to reveal the hidden patriarchy that exists just below the surface. (Of course, that is not to say that it doesn’t have relevance to audiences elsewhere.)
The challenges are around reactions to the work itself (from funding bodies or institutions, etc.). My work comes from a feminist perspective, but it’s intersectional and cuts across many different issues. And I wholeheartedly believe that feminism is for everyone.
Working in different mediums creates multiple entry points into my work. They cross pollinate and develop in different ways, and feed into each other. Maya for instance exists as a museum installation (we showed at the V&A), as well as at festivals.
HtN: Finally, I’m curious to hear more about your work as a feminist-activist – especially since you actually managed to upend Nepalese law. Are there best practices for enacting change? Any big mistakes you see artists continually make?
PB: Yes, my work helped criminalize the practice of menstrual exile in Nepal, but this is more than a law and order issue. The work continues at the grassroots level to change hearts and minds around the ideas that patriarchal cultural practices assert regarding women’s menstrual blood – and more widely on her body and sense of self. Art and rebellion are the same thing. Making art is an act of resistance. So the best practice is to organize and activate everyday. It is a daily practice. For me art and activism are entwined.
And before you bring change to the world, you need to bring change to yourself. Artists can bring their own lived experience to bear on their work, which feeds into the wider dialogue around change in the world, and activism as an individual and collective experience/act. It creates ripples and is transferred to the audience through an invisible force and energy. In this way it can inspire and heal societies.
– Lauren Wissot
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