“THERE NEEDS TO BE A STRONG DIALOGUE ABOUT SEX TRAFFICKING”
LEENA KEJRIWAL, 35, Photographer and Artist, Kolkata
Ensconced amid cushions with Frida Kahlo smiling on the covers, photographer and installation artist Leena Kejriwal creates a picture of a spirited canvas, much like her favourite artist.
A bit disturbing, the jagged outlines of a black fiberglass installation are a jolt of reality. The silhouettes are part of the M.I.S.S.I.N.G public art campaign Kejriwal had launched in 2014-15 to create a massive art awareness about sex trafficking.
“The silhouettes are symbols of black holes into which millions of girls disappear,” says Kejriwal.M.I.S.S.I.N.G, was first featured as an installation piece in India Art Fair 2014. “There is no public dialogue in sex trafficking. I felt the need of creating a strong dialogue with the public about the consumers who create the demand and the girls go missing,” she says. The silhouettes took over the walls in every available open space in 10 cities. But Kejriwal was looking for a blitzkrieg impact. She launched a Missing App, a free android game in animation, which tells the stories of millions of trafficked innocent village girls in the sex trade. The app won Nasscom game of the year and has half a million organic downloads across the country.
Born into a conservative patriarchal Marwari family where falling into a set structure—education, early marriage, child birth—was the norm, Kejriwal actually ventured out in the big, bad world, five years after marriage and motherhood. She started off as a portrait artist, taking portrait pictures of her children and other kids in the house. Her first studio was at home within the four walls of a sprawling bungalow in Alipore, Kolkata. Today, she has come a long way from the closeted portrait studio of her terrace to the open— her silhouettes have taken up the university campus, boundaries of public buildings, and street corners, raising a storm and setting off typhoons.