Pushpamala N

Photo- and video-performance artist Pushpamala N. plays the subject in images that critique female stereotypes in India and the reductive classifications furthered by ethnographic documentation. Drawing attention to the constructed nature of the image, Pushpamala reenacts historical representations of women in order to subvert them; in one series she embodies the seven moods traditionally associated with women in northern India poetry and painting, including sad, happy, and erotic. Her work, which has been compared to Cindy Sherman’s, also references Bollywood archetypes and narratives.