Simran Ahuja By Express News Service BENGALURU: She may not be a doctor with solutions to why women suffer from period cramps, PCOD or endometriosis, but artist A P Payal did the next best thing known to her to help spread the word about these issues. The result: A tarot deck, all centred around themes related to menstruation and women’s health. The artwork will be on display at this year’s edition of Gender Bender arts festival in the city from August 21 to 24. While a standard tarot deck has 78 cards, Payal’s The Fabulous Hysteric has only 29, to draw on the number that makes up the average menstrual cycle. Each card focuses on a different aspect of the theme, including hygiene, menopause, safe sex, cervical cancer and infertility. For example, the card on endometriosis (a painful condition wherein the tissue that lines the uterus grows outside the uterus) has a woman with the following words tattooed on her abdomen: Mard ko dard nahi hota. “This is a famous phrase so I used it to say that while men don’t experience pain, women with endometriosis experience lots of it. These references to pop-culture and cinema are ones that an Indian audience would be familiar with,” explains the Delhi-based artist who will be visiting Bengaluru for the festival. Another card has a woman with her back to the viewer, with the uterus and ovaries donning the horns and tail of the devil, and wings and halo of an angel. “Someone on their period tends to crave unhealthy food, are fatigued and don’t want to go out much. This card showcases the range of emotions someone on their period experiences,” explains Payal. Themes of body positivity, feminism, nature and mental health are recurrent, though unconscious, in Payal’s artwork, with her also having worked on a web comic (called Her-sutism) on PCOD (polycystic ovary syndrome) in 2017. Part fantasy and part informative, the comic looked at the experiences of women who suffer from the condition, including the artist herself. “One entire section of the work was dedicated to reimagining Disney princesses as people who have PCOD,” says Payal. For instance, Snow White was based on a student with PCOD who told her that her period came every 3-4 months, with bleeding lasting for 15-20 days. People would often compliment her for her beauty and fairness, not realising that her haemoglobin levels were actually low as a result of anaemia. “In my comic, Snow White made people realise that this was the reason she was the fairest. She then goes on to ask someone to give her a magic apple to regularise her period.” The most surprising part of her research, which took over 2-3 weeks, showed Payal that even today, many health resources claim to not know the exact cause for why endometriosis or PCOD occurs. “We only talk about how we don’t like our period and that we are in pain. But we don’t talk about what it means to have a menstrual disorder. I hope my work will spark a much-needed public conversation at least,” says Payal. A joint project of the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan and Sandbox Collective, Gender Bender focuses on showcasing artworks on gender and will take place at the Bangalore International Centre from August 21 to 24.

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