Public art project by Fearless Collective with Sisterhood Initiative 

By Thamali Wijekoon

Fearless Collective, a South Asia based public arts project, was recently in Sri Lanka, conducting their first Artist Residency with several artists from across South Asia. The project was conducted from the 1st to the 4th of April 2022 at the Salvation Army Building in Colombo in collaboration with Sisterhood Initiative, a non-profit, non-political & non-religious discussion and volunteer group. 

The project was supported by 5 artists; two of these artists- Maham Chiragh from Pakistan and Gargi Chandola from India, conducted a workshop with a group of women from Sisterhood Initiative which then led to painting a massive mural on the back wall of the Salvation Army building in Union Place. The mural was conceptualized based on what affects women and what kind of struggles represent the community in Sri Lanka. “The mural is of a Christian person and a Muslim girl holding hands where the hands symbolize lifting each other up. One girl seems to be pulling the other girl’s hand while the other hand is firmly rooting the other. So it’s like we are rooted in our beliefs and things that define us and help each other out. The pictures are also of two people from our organization itself. That was the theme we wanted to come out. We wanted to represent ourselves by actually putting up ourselves without drawing any other people so that we felt that our stories are told best by us”, Nabeela Iqbal from Sisterhood Initiative told us.

Fearless Collective was started in 2012 by Bangalore-based visual artist Shilo Shiv Suleman in response to the powerful protests that shook the country in response to the “Nirbhaya” tragedy in Delhi, India. Since then, Fearless has worked in over 12 countries, co-creating over 40 murals, reclaiming spaces, carving out public depictions of women and their significance in societies around the world – from the small indigenous village of Olivencia colonized by the Portuguese in Brazil, to the first known public testament to queer masculinities in Beirut, Lebanon, to the sprawling community of Lyari rift with gang violence in Karachi, Pakistan. Fearless’ work is to show up in spaces of fear, isolation, and trauma and support communities as they reclaim these public spaces with the images and affirmations they choose. At the moment, Fearless is focusing on working in South Asia. Sisterhood Initiative as a volunteer group dedicated to understanding and addressing issues faced by Muslim women in the country, works towards creating safe spaces for young Muslim women and girls in Sri Lanka to come together to share experiences, engage in curated discussions and find a sense of community among each other, working with women from all different faiths, cultures and backgrounds. 

As put by the artists, this mural is ‘an act of interfaith solidarity, rooted in the unique stories of resistance of a group of women who continue to create spaces, raise their voices, and hold up one another in the face of a deeply divisive environment.’  The mural painted in collaboration with the Sisterhood Initiative is a reclamation of stories that have often been erased and villainized simply for existing, and a telling of those stories that celebrate their agency, their power and sisterhood. “What most of the girls at Sisterhood Initiative said was that they were all dedicating it to a woman in their families, someone who has helped them and lifted them o come here so in a way they dedicated the mural to someone who represented the mural. It is like we have come full circle.” Nabeela said, adding further.