Artist In Public Service.  

Mobilising To End Victim Blame
Towards The Right To Be Defenceless.

An idea has no significance or meaning unless someone makes it their own.

Patheja designs public and participatory projects to end gender-based violence and claim defencelessness. Jasmeen Patheja is an Artist in Public Service, committed to ending violence against women, girls and all persons. Patheja initiates ideas and facilitates collective feminist action towards the right to be defenceless.   In 2003, Patheja founded Blank Noise to address the silence surrounding street harassment in India and globally. Blank Noise works to affect public consciousness, calling everyday citizens to become ‘Action Sheroes’/ Heroes/ Theyroes and take the agency to end gender-based violence. Over the 20 years, her approach has grown from street harassment to victim blame; emphasising the interconnectedness of gender-based violence across spaces.

Patheja designs methodologies to build testimonials of violence against women. Her practice is based on listening to lived experiences. It rests on the power of feminist solidarities. She works with themes including fear, public and private memory, imagination, shame, desire,  belonging, empathy and the weight of defence. Select projects at Blank Noise include the I Never Ask For It Mission, Meet To Sleep and Talk To Me.

Awards and recognition include the International Award For Public Art, for Talk To Me (2015). In 2019 Patheja was awarded the Visible Award for the project I Never Ask For It / Meet To Sleep. Vera List Center awarded her the Jane Lombard Fellowship For Art and Politics. BBC listed her as one of the 12 artists changing the world, in 2019. Patheja is a TED speaker, a TED and an Ashoka Fellow. Select residencies include the Bellagio Residency with CARE and the Rockefeller Foundation, Akademie Schloss Solitude. Patheja is based in Bangalore and is currently a resident at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art Design and Technology.

Patheja and her grandmother Indri are collaborators.