When Words Fell, 1998 (2003 Womanifesto screening)

This page is part of a collaborative work-in-progress for the forthcoming Womanifesto Way digital anthology and will change as the project is reviewed prior to publication.

Varsha Nair’s 1998 video when Words Fell was screened at Womanifesto: Procreation/Postcreation in 2003. Screened at the launch of publication on November 11, 2003 at Pridi Banomyong, the video screening also included footage of the Womanifesto Workshop in 2001, amongst 10 other artists including Kai Kaljo (A Loser, 1997), Virginia Hilyard (E.G., 1989/1990), and Alicia Villareal (The Imaginary School, 2003). The event also included performances by Mink Nopparat, Khaisaeng Phanyawatchira, Jittima Pholsawek, The Beauty Suit Team, The Crescent Moon, The Wandering Moon and Liliane Zumkemi.

The programme for the event quoted Katy Deepwell in her essay, ‘Critical Texts; Aesthetic and Political Sub-Texts, in the publication Text & Subtext - Contemporary Art and Asian Women.’:

"In Varsha Nair's video When Words Fell, a text (an unknown albeit familiar cultural reference to me) describing the different cultural attitudes to the birth of a boy or a girl! is read out and made visible to camera. The lower cultural expectations of joy and happiness for the girl are slowly deconstructed by the video performance of the artist as she carefully and exaggeratedly decorates herself with a multiplicity of dots to become 'Kali' rather than the stereotyped sub-ordinated 'traditional' woman and by her handling in one frame of the book itself - indicating her mind as well as voice analysing the text's assumptions and the measure of difference from her own life.

Content from Procreation/Postcreation video screening - programme © Womanifesto archive