At Dior’s Autumn/Winter show in February, several 15-foot-tall panels crafted by Shakuntala Kulkarni overlooked the runway. In them, the Mumbai-based artist, armoured and mid-stride, appeared to be marching or performing a powerful, ritualistic dance. Below, models took swanlike strides to the thumping cadence of drums. Wearing Maria Grazia Chiuri’s latest raiments, they navigated around a central installation of nine austere exoskeletons—Kulkarni’s cane armour. Through her decades-long exploration of female body politics, these rigid structures have served as integral artistic conduits.
For Kulkarni, who has been represented by Mumbai’s Chemould Prescott Road since the 1980s, the relationship with cane began by chance: “I was in Shivaji Park when drops of tar burned parts of my face,” she recalls. Jolted, she wondered how people, especially women, were to protect themselves in the public sphere. Cane was a practical medium for narrating this conundrum, both monetarily and functionally. She began working with the late Dinesh Pardesi, a cane craftsman from a nearby shop, and soon realised how hardy a material it could be. “Cane is pliable. You can heat it, twist and bend it. As a creeper, it is also deceptively strong.”
The artist’s subsequent cane armour sets, inspired in part by female Zen warriors and her own martial arts experience, underscore the material deceptiveness of cane. The cage-like armour pieces signal protection, even as they trap the female body through their rigidity. A binary so intrinsic to the concept of marriage, a social structure meant to protect a woman that can become a vehicle of atrocities against her. As Kulkarni created her latest series Armour for Brides (2022), which appeared in the Dior show, she toyed with this idea, and the accompanying sense of discomfort.
It took Kulkarni one year to create five sets of armour with the help of Pardesi as well as Tonkeshwar Barik, Krishna Karikar and Koliya Kachari, Assamese cane artists who travelled all the way to Mumbai for the project. “I went window shopping for bridal clothes. I even attended a wed- ding.” Kulkarni remarks. “It was important to me to understand how brides from different communities dress. The subtle nuances—how they sit, how they put on their dupattas, balance them...,” she adds
Beautifully embellished with Barik’s woven jewellery, each piece looks regal, commanding. When worn, it forces an upright gait, as do her other armour series. Wearing it could feel like an assertion of power for some, stifling to others or both, simultaneously. The idea of clothing as armour is evident. “On the one hand, we like the attention from others when we wear interesting clothes. On the other hand, the male gaze can feel like entrapment,” she says.
While Shakuntala Kulkarni addresses the age-old victimisation of women in patriarchal societies, she finds that their assertions of freedom and power are equally her responsibility to portray. Women’s experiences with public space can change, as can their power over external gazes. When Kulkarni viewed her 15-foot panels at the Dior show, she experienced a renewed relationship with her own artwork. “When I saw them blown up, the whole equation changed. You could feel the grandeur of the female body. When I saw my body, it felt amazing. It was overwhelming, powerful.”
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