She’s an artist and an activist. She is a part of two community-run programmes (including one, Sister Library, that she started herself) based out of Mumbai that do immense good to children, especially girls, and women across a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds. She’s also a woman who comes from an indigenous Indian background, a region which is militarised, and has had to make space and time for a long healing process.
And yet, our biggest takeaway from the conversation with the indomitable Aqui Thami is that her very presence is extremely reassuring, calming, and yes, inspiring—just what every woman needs in a friend, right? Here’s what you should know about her.
The Making Of An Artist-Activist
Thami’s journey as an artist, she says, started with the inability to cope with the way the world was, how sad and hopeless things happening around her—and around us all—made her feel. It also started with the acceptance of the things she cannot change, and perhaps the things she could. This realization nudged her to engage in activities that bring her happiness, strength, power and healing. When it comes to becoming an activist, Thami reveals that journey was more natural, given her background.
Coming from the Darjeeling district, Thami’s parents have been activists themselves, and so, she says, she “did not know a life outside activism” while growing up. It’s only when she moved to Mumbai that she realised that not everyone else leads a similar life. Still, Thami doesn’t regret her upbringing. Instead, she believes it’s as good a way to be brought up as others, especially since it opens up a different kind of world for you. Then, there’s the fact that Thami comes from an indigenous Indian background. “Being an indigenous person, I think our survival is, in a way, like being an activist in itself,” she says.
Reclaiming Public Spaces For Women
Is it any surprise then that a woman like Thami will also identify with the injustices that women and girls face everywhere? It seems like her background, upbringing and outlook in life has indeed made Thami the perfect conduit for women’s protest against injustice. Her “Pink Posters” initiative definitely proves it. Thami started pasting fluorescent pink posters with the words, “A woman was harassed here”, or “yahaan ek mahila pe atyachaar hua tha” in Hindi, across Mumbai in order to reclaim public places where women felt unsafe.
The initiative was started not only to make women feel anything but isolated and lonely when such incidents happen but also to build solidarity against such incidents of sexual assault, molestation, rape and violence. Another intention behind the “Pink Posters” was to address bystander apathy. “The posters allow people that space, where they could pause and think about how spaces they consider safe could be unsafe spaces for a lot of women,” she says. “It also helps them reconsider themselves and their positions as bystanders, and how they could intervene or how they could extend solidarity and support to women.”
A Library For Women, By Women
In 2018, Thami started another initiative that has endeared her to the cause of women’s rights even more. Already a part of the team that runs the Dharavi Art Room, Thami decided to start a little library through which she could share all the works of women authors she had in her collection. Called the Sister Library, the initiative now has a home in Bandra West, and has also travelled across the world, from New Zealand to Bangladesh, as an installation. Here, amidst hundreds of books written by women from across the world, in many languages, Thami welcomes women and girls from all backgrounds.
Thami has also started Sister Press to be able to support budding women writers, poets and artists. “I think it's important to look at what women are saying, what women are thinking and how women see the world and experience the world,” she explains, adding that this is definitely one of the ways women can build a sisterhood of support and solidarity. Her initiative and work are aimed at empowering young girls so that they grow up understanding that they are not alone. “Women, as a class, face certain things, and it’s important for young girls to understand that,” she says. “And also, it's exciting to also see that community you know, where you meet so many diverse women, women doing all kinds of things and then you can exchange ideas.”