Saints and Rebels

THESE THREE CREATIVES HAVE LIVED MARKEDLY DIFFERENT LIVES, BUT THE ONE THING THEY HAVE IN COMMON IS A DESIRE TO FEARLESSLY USE THEIR ART TO CREATE MORE INCLUSIVE SPACES FOR THEIR CHOSEN COMMUNITIES – AND O PAY TRIBUTE TO THOSE WHO HAVE COME BEFORE THEM

- HILLARY KANG

AMRITA CHANDRADAS

THE SINGAPOREAN PHOTOGRAPHER TALKS ABOUT GENERATIONAL TRAUMAS AND THE IDEA OF WOMANHOOD WITHIN THE LOCAL TAMIL COMMUNITY – AND WHY SHE WANTS TO QUESTION THESE LONG-HELD BELIEFS

Your latest film, Phase/Less, is largely about Tamil traditions, and how women are seen through the lens of these traditions. How much of the film was rooted in your own personal experiences?

Even though we are all Tamil women in the community, we all have different experiences – like with funerary traditions. I remember a very traumatic experience I witnessed when I was young. When my neighbour lost her husband, they made her wear her wedding bangles, and they broke all the bangles. They burned her wedding sari. The way she was crying... It was very violent, very visceral. I was maybe 12 at the time, and it was very upsetting to see – it really imprints on you. I’ve seen similar sorts of things with my aunties, after they lose a husband. They’re seen as ‘inauspicious’, and they’re not able to participate in various ceremonies and social events. And the same kind of thing doesn’t apply to men at all.

If you’re a Tamil woman who has lost your husband, your identity is immediately stripped away. You’re not allowed to wear flowers, or the red pottu – you can’t live your life the way it was before, and as a woman, you have no say in this at all. It’s not just men who impose this, other women do it too: There’s a sense, among women who have lost their husbands, that we need to ‘upkeep the tradition’.