What comes to mind when you think about the temples and religious practices of India? For those familiar with the region, concepts like purity and piety would most likely top the list. However, visual designer Akshita Chandra shows this isn’t always the case in Being Censitive, an interactive illustration project based on the Khajuraho temples of India, or more specifically, the temple’s erotic sculptures. Through this project, Chandra aims to incite discussion around the topic of Indian’s system of censorship and moral policing.
提到印度的宗教和寺庙，也许多数人会将它与虔诚与纯洁等词语挂钩。而艺术家Akshita Chandra却做了件破格的事。她借鉴印度克久拉霍寺庙中的性爱雕塑，大胆创作了一系列“尺度颇大”的插画互动作品，名为《Being Censitive》。借此讨论印度社会对于“性”的审查制度，以及大众心中对性这个话题的审判标准。
Regarded by many to be India’s mecca of sexuality, Khajuraho is a small village located southeast of New Delhi. The nickname comes from the erotic carvings of the Khajuraho Group of Monuments, a cluster of well-known Hindu and Jain temples. These sculptures left behind speak of an open-minded outlook on sexuality, an outlook that’s quite different from the conservative viewpoint of modern-day India. Today, the sculptures seen in the Khajuraho temples would most likely be unacceptable and would be subject to censorship. It’s exactly this juxtaposition between the past and the present that intrigued Chandra.
克久拉霍是位于新德里东南方的一座小镇，这里的寺庙内有大量性爱主题的雕塑，所以也被称为印度的“性都”。从这些古人留下的雕塑可以看出当时的印度社会对于性的开放度还是很高的。然而，以现今社会的审核制度来看，这些艺术品恐怕是不合格的，甚至说是应该被屏蔽或加上马赛克。这个矛盾点引发了艺术家Chandra的兴趣。
The idea to borrow from the aesthetics of the Khajuraho sculptures in her illustrations is to allow viewers a look at the religious temple art through the lens of censorship. “I’m also referencing a few recent examples of censorship to create a subdued dialogue between the past and the present,” Chandra elaborates. The project consists of eight interactive illustrations with movable elements that allow viewers to physically engage with the work and reveal or cover up the characters. As Chandra describes, the goal of the project is for people to think critically themselves about the issue of censorship. “I’m interested in exploring the line between what might be considered obscene and what might be considered acceptable.”
“我想制作一些插画，人物的风格直接借用克久拉霍寺庙雕塑的美学，而每幅插画引用一件社会上有关审核制度的时事，创造一个古今对话的平台。”她制作了8件插画互动装置，这些装置包含了一些小机关，让观众在“解开”与“隐藏”的过程中自发性地思考问题。“我希望通过这个作品来开启讨论，究竟“淫荡”和“正常“的边界在哪里。
One illustration looks at when Indian law enforcement arrested over 40 couples from their private hotel rooms, accusing them of public indecency. One of the arrested individuals said, “I am not a prostitute. I am an adult who was out with my fiancé, who I am supposed to marry next month, to find some privacy. I had entered my name in the hotel register with my identity proof and also handed over the relevant documents when asked by the cops. But, when I tried to tell a female constable all of this, she slapped me.”
印度警方从酒店的私人房间中逮捕了超过40对男女，他们被指控公众地方行为不检，而被带去警局审问。一位被捕男士告诉记者：“我并不是在从事色情活动，我只是和我的未婚妻开了一间房，我们下个月就要结婚了。而当我向一名女警官解释这些的时候，她给了我一巴掌。” Chandra以这则荒谬的新闻内容，制作了上面这幅插画装置。
Another illustration is based on a quote by right-wing educational activist Dinanath Batra where she stated, “Sex education will pollute young minds and hence must not find space in the improved and ‘Indianised’ education system that the government wants to introduce.”
这幅插画的题材来自印度右翼教育激进分子Dinanath Batra的言论：“性教育会为未成年人带来不良的影响，因此在我们改革的‘印度化’教育体系中，性教育一定要被撇除。”
The censorship practices of India’s TV Channel Romedy Now also became one of the topics in the eight-part series – the network censors any appearance of clothed cleavage, considering it to be highly obscene.
这幅插画则取材于一则有关印度电视台“Romedy Now”的时事：官方规定要给演员露出的乳沟打上马赛克，因为它们太过淫秽了。
This project was Chandra’s way of bringing attention to the issue of censorship, a topic she’d long been intrigued by. After four months of research and revisions, Being Censitive was debuted to highly positive reception on both a local and global level. “I feel extremely grateful for the kind of exposure I got through this project. I got to interact and converse with so many people from all across the globe. It feels wonderful to know the kind of audiences this project has been able to reach. It’s something I never imagined when I initially started.”
Chandra花了前后4个月去做这个作品，通过了一连串的资料搜集和重新组装，出来的成果终于接近了她最初的理念。“这个作品为我带来了很大的曝光率，来自不同地区的观众都对它感兴趣，在制作的时候，并没有想过这个项目可以带我去到那么远，我很感恩。”
