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Officially Identified

‘‘What makes you Indian? The literature? The architecture?  The language?’
                                                                                  - Lavender  Hippo, Week 09

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Click on 'Read' on any of the thumbnails to go to the page with ALL the artworks under this theme and read reflections and more

NAVIGATION

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The Contents

of Merit

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Treasure Chest

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Blackjack

with Labels

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Counting Privileges

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Embody

the Eyes

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Prove Your ...

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"I" of Colours and Lines

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No Longer Drifting

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The Shades of Our Names

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Cards of Belonging

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The Roots

that Hold Us

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A Rose

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Random Names at a

Railway Station

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Pure Chance

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TEAR IT UP

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Kaagaz

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I to i

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Portals

 

DESCRIPTION:  This is a collage of thumbnails of the artistic responses that are part of this theme. Each thumbnail of the image has a background that corresponds to the week in which it was submitted. There are 18 artworks under this theme. This is the colour scheme and the total number of images for each week: Week 2, light green:1, Week 4,light purple: 1, Week 5,light blue: 2, Week 6,orange:2, Week 7,light yellow:5,Week 9,mustard:7

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There is a constant tension between the identities that we cherish - that hold us close to the people and values we care about – and the identities we are forced to subscribe to in order to be recognized by the state. The officiality of identity is the antithesis of flesh and blood and emotive embodiments, and it concretizes the structural hierarchies in which we are embedded by encoding them in layers of impersonal bureaucratization. In official documentation, structural hierarchies of caste, gender, disability and others become codified and ingrained while simultaneously giving the illusion that we are all the same, with our differences obliterated under the banners of the state. The codification of identity makes it much harder for marginalized people to “pass” or to conceal their status in order to escape prejudice and discrimination. It also becomes harder for a person’s structural markers to not influence perceptions of them. Moreover, the officiality of identity is also determined through various symbols, the claims to which declare some forms of existence worthier than others. Prejudices influence the access that members of various social groups have to these symbols of worthiness, and this implies that those with marginalized identities face restrictions in accessing these symbols. Hence, official markers of identity ensure that cycles of inequalities and prejudices persist. 

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