(ASEMIC) EC(H)OS OF NEW DELHI
In this blog, artist Lia Petrelli argues that asemic writing is a powerful route to freedom of expression in the most oppressive spaces, ranging from the most personal and intimate spaces, to wider contexts of authoritarianism and dictatorship. Her arguments are developed out of her reflections during the residency she carried out as part of ART in India in November 2024. This is an extract from a longer article, reproduced with permission from the author.
Asemic writing as part of the collaborative mural ‘Don’t Worry, We Have Nothing to Say’.
THE RESEARCH
From November 15 to 30 2024, I was in New Delhi, taking part in an artistic residency commissioned by the Art Rights Truth project. Accompanying me were two researchers from the Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR), along with an incredible Indian artist. Tallulah Lines, visual artist, muralist, and researcher; Emilie Flower, filmmaker and researcher; and Pooja Dhingra, art director, graphic designer, and co-creator of Rafooghar. The first proposal I submitted to the University regarding the investigations that interested me on Brazil-India context was about this distinction: eco vs eco. The second was about the codified forms within the city’s body, which continues to produce an echo between cultures, since urban art began in Brazil in the same way it did in India — to speak about, against, and in favor of political propaganda during the rise of military dictatorships.
Going to India confirmed something I had long noticed: asemic writing is a powerful tool against censorship, since the feelings expressed as abstractions can only be understood by the one who writes, at the moment of writing, and after that, the meaning fades away, making it so that even the writer cannot interpret the writing in the way it was initially conceived, generating other conversations from it. All the experiences I had while sharing my research in New Delhi showed me how essential abstraction is for those who cannot speak, think, or feel freely. Today, I share some of these insights.
RAFOOGHAR
Everything I experienced in India was organised by Pooja Dhingra, co-creator of the Compassion Contagion and Rafooghar projects — which operates in collaboration with the Yellow Streets project (by Yursa Khan) and Art Reach India. Rafooghar in Hindi translates to rafoo- repair, house-ghar inspired by the word Rafoogar - cloth mender/darner, the act of sewing old, worn-out, and forgotten fabrics; recycling, so to speak. “At Rafooghar mending is beyond fabric, an attempt to heal ourselves and our relationships with each other”, as Pooja told me.
Rafooghar sits in the Shaheen Bagh neighbourhood in southern New Delhi. The neighbourhood is known as one of the places where most of the Muslim population of Delhi lives, a group that today faces persecution due to the Hindu nationalist policies of the current government. Shaheen Bagh was the site of a peaceful and artistic protest organised by local women, beginning in 2019 and ending at the onset of COVID-19. For 101 days, people sat in vigil against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and other associated policies, which have been widely criticised for disproportionately discriminating against Muslims. The signing of the amendment states that Muslims who cannot prove they have lived in the country for over 11 years will be considered non-citizens of India. It was in this neighbourhood that I spent most of my days while in India. Emilie and Tallulah interviewed women who participated in the protest, and I was able to take part in the filming.
The women interviewed are regulars at Rafooghar, and it was for them and their daughters that the first asemic writing classes in the country were held. We were introduced to the group through a celebration. Tallulah Lines created a painting for the rooftop of Rafooghar. Through the answers to the question “What do I feel when I sew?”, the three sleeping tigresses emerged, representing collectivity, calm, breath, and, in some way, also carrying the essence of rest—leading me to wonder when I saw the image: “What will happen when these tigresses wake up?”
With many hands working together, we painted the mural and built a relationship of trust with the women of Rafooghar, creating a bond reminiscent of Brazilian warmth—through music and food. And there is another echo between our countries.
Members of Rafooghar paint their first collaborative mural.
ASEMIC WRITING WORKSHOPS
Over two weeks, I conducted four asemic writing workshops: two for children and two for adults, in different contexts, which echoed similarly through bodies touched by abstract writing, rhyming with the perceptions that reinforce my recent discovery – that, again, asemic writing is a very needed tool for those who cannot manifest feeling.
The first workshop I organised in New Delhi was for Rafooghar’s children. It was there that I began to hear the powerful echoes of my research. Filled with fear, I structured three games with children aged 10 to 16: joint scribbles, where, in pairs, we experimented feeling the pencil’s dance, moving across the paper guided by another person; ensemble risk, where pens traveled across the page alongside many other hands; and blind contour drawing, where we did not look at our own lines while drawing another person, we could only look and see the person we wanted to represent. I did all of this to the sound of Gilberto Gil, frevo, laughter, and languages I didn’t understand.
The result of all this, according to the children themselves, was the feeling of, for the first time ever, being able to experience the power of expressing anger. During ensemble risk, some parts of the paper were torn apart. At school, they would have been reprimanded. Everything we did together is usually seen as a "mistake," and when there was no restriction, no scolding, no forced pause in expression, the environment became more fluid. Their scrawls could say what their mouths could not.
Lia Petrelli at the asemic writing workshop Silent Noise, at KNMA.
The following day it was time to introduce asemic writing to the Women of Rafooghar, where I was able to conduct everything more calmly and explain the therapeutic concepts I weave into the act of writing. We began with a meditation and visualisation exercise, relaxing the body to open the sensitive pores that hold our emotions and free the way, letting everything influence our strokes — remembering that there is a safe place within us that we can access when too much accumulates. This was followed by an abstract representation of the feelings that pass through us — those we carry inside and those that reach us from the outside — this time focusing on the strength and intention of our strokes, letting go of control and acting only through the sensation of the tool in contact with the paper.
With longer duration and extended sharing, as the women spoke, it was even more clear to me that asemic art is a powerful tool for self-analysis and secrecy. A sheet completely perforated by small pressures of a pencil tip carries all the intimate destruction that can no longer remain in the body; straight lines and empty spaces enumerate the achievements and the voids that fill the feeling; a graphite web covering the entire blank page also speaks of the strength it takes to hold back tears.
Right at the beginning some women spoke about their desire to keep a diary—something they never dared to do for fear that their husbands or family members might discover what they truly feel; basically they didn’t even try for fear of censorship. With great power and skill, the women of Rafooghar used strokes and lines to express deep feelings of injustice and inequality. Embraced by the sanctuary that the house becomes, we cried together, listening to stories unimaginable to us, who live in "peace" with our emotional expressions.
For children between 10 and 15 years old, I conducted the workshop at the Community Library project. First, I explained to them the power of the strokes, scrawl and scribbles — how a very thin and weak line can express sadness, or how a heavy stroke can indicate stronger feelings. Once again, the expression of anger appeared almost unanimously. Next, I introduced the wrist dance exercise and then the shift in perspective regarding the pencil as a tool. All the children — 100% of them — responded that when they were not required to hold the pencil or pen in the "normal" way, scribbling became more enjoyable.
Unlike Rafooghar, this project seems to encourage formal education, so I noticed that some children were scolded for not following instructions "correctly" — for example, when they tapped on the table in search of new strokes, clearly using the paper as a receptor for their emotions.
Understanding the difference between audiences, I became merely an observer of the context and assumed that the extra weight of the "school-like" treatment comes along with the lack that most of the volunteers who run the library experienced throughout their social development. Today, they value the opportunity to provide this for children and teenagers.
The project coordinator, Mausam, is a woman born in rural India, and according to her, the place she comes from has no electricity, basic sanitation, or education. Therefore, some things that should be common knowledge since 2010 are only accessible through the internet. For example, exam registrations can only be done online, as well as checking results, accessing information about addresses, schedules, etc. Those who live in remote areas often do not have the chance to integrate into society equally. For her, the internet has played a very perverse role in the country's social development. For Mausam, being able to keep the project’s headquarters running in three locations in New Delhi, serving all castes of India, is a great relief.
Finally, I conducted a long workshop for undergraduate students and professors of visual arts at the Kiran Nadar Museum. Unlike the other experiences, I was able to introduce some philosophical concepts of asemic language, which intersect with political contexts (as to say Mirtha Dermisache’s works) and unfold as a language tool.
In the formal context of a "lecture" presentation, I blended theory and practice. I was able to deepen some of the exercises I apply in the trajectory of the Laboratórios das Múltiplas Caligrafias (Multiple Calligraphy’s Lab) that I conduct in Brazil since 2020, where I chose to present the nuances of "Silent Noise", a perception of asemic writing linked to music, music sheets, and cartographies.
The noise of Delhi is immense. At least four languages coexist there, along with incessant honking and singing vendors. It is impossible not to notice the uproar — both visual and sonic. Thus, beyond my search for echoes, silence seems to be a similar pursuit for those who live in big cities. I led the students to experience active listening in a cartography exercise outside the museum. Beyond the honking, they discovered the sounds of footsteps, brooms, people whispering on the phone, airplanes, and birds.
‘Don’t Worry, We Have Nothing to Say’, members of Rafooghar create a collaborative, public mural.
DON’T WORRY, WE HAVE NOTHING TO SAY
The last collective action we carried out with the women and children of Rafooghar was the mural "Don’t worry, we have nothing to say," which we hand-painted in Hindi in the middle of Kalindi Kunj Road. The wall, covered in political advertisements, had to be cleaned by swift hands, immediately triggering complaints from men about the act.
The idea of the mural came from Emilie Flower, and the aim was to create an ephemeral mural, sharing the techniques of asemic writing. The theme connects with the lack of female expression in India, which "gets worse every day," according to several accounts from the interviews we conducted.
After serving as a repository for expressions that could not be spoken, we would erase the traces of the event and leave the wall clean. During the painting, the residents of Shaheen Bagh, passing by the road, began to create various concepts for the action, such as "when you see an accident, or someone in need of help, and say you can't do anything because it's not your business," or "like when Muslims are prevented from saying what they think," as some passersby (men) said.
While we were painting the wall, we were stopped by the police, but with Hariom's help, we managed to handle the situation. He explained to the police, in a brilliantly improvised act, that the phrase was nothing more than an educational message encouraging children not to develop judgment. "I told the officer that the children are trying to tell the adults that they care, and that you can share your feelings, if you’d like, they won't judge you for it because they are pure."
Noticing the movement and commotion around the painted wall, we reconsidered the idea of erasing our work. We proposed a vote, giving a voice to the participants who were in favor of keeping the wall. They explained their decision: "If we leave it there, the people passing by on the street will be able to think about the phrase, and each person will have a different interpretation of what is displayed."
While this may seem obvious to us, for the women and children of Shaheen Bagh, it was a novelty, as Anupama had warned us that writing in India is only used to sell things.
With our eyes closed, we voted, and the decision to keep the painting won.
