Blog @ the Nelson-Atkins

At first glance, Beloved Daughters: Photographs by Fazal Sheikh is a beautiful exhibition. Black and white images of women and children are simply framed. Large, dark eyes and chubby round faces fill the walls. Upon closer inspection, the exhibition is haunting, heartwrenching and thoroughly moving.

Divided into two sections, Beloved Daughters unites two recent projects by artist-activist Fazal Sheikh which explore the challenges facing women in certain sectors of contemporary Indian society. Challenges such as living and breathing.

The first section, Ladli (which means Beloved Daughter) attacks the complexity of social problems in India such as selective abortion, girls abandonned in orphanages, arranged marriages, forced prostitution and homeless children.

Many of the images are taken straight on with the subject staring directly into the camera giving the viewer a sense of the relationship with the artist. Many are accompanied by testimonials from the women. They are stories of pain, suffering and injustice.

"There's a name to every face and a story behind every portrait," said Associate Curator April Watson. This is not a voyeuristic relationship.

Sheikh was very concerned with the "rush-in, rush-out" mentality of journalists when he worked in northern Africa in the early 1990s. While the media "plunged in, worked swiftly, and departed," Sheikh stayed and began photographing what was left of shattered communities and families living in refugee camps.

Ladli was the same approach. Sheikh worked with activist groups to gain first-hand stories from these women and children. Any money he makes is given back to the communities he has worked in or is used for his next project.

The second half of Beloved Daughters is called Moksha which means Heaven. Moskha concerns dispossessed widows who move to the holy city of Vrindavan to live out their lives in devotion to the Hindu god Krishna. These women who no longer have an association with a husband are cast out by society and many times by their remaining family often under threat of violence.

The images in this section are slightly less disturbing than in Ladli but the stories of loss and pain remain. The translation of "heaven" has a different meaning than the western tradition. Heaven means a release of the cycle of rebirth and reincarnation into lives of desperation. There is small comfort knowing that these women have been set free from their earthly pain.

Beloved Daughters is on view until Sept. 13 in gallery L11. Admission is free. Sheikh will give a free lecture at the Museum on Sept. 10.

Complete online editions of Moksha and Ladli are available at the artist's website, fazalsheikh.org.