2021 - 2022
The archetypes of empire are deep set into our collective psyches- with all of its language and oppressions. Despite democracies, we are seeing rising fundamentalisms, and while the pandemic forced us away from the streets, it also stripped us of agency to choose how to move, how to work, how to gather and how to exist. As borders began to open again- we chose the year to be Sovereign.
This year, at the forefront of people’s movements, growing our network across the world- we take the power back- away from archaic institutions and into our own.
To be sovereign is to be self determining, self knowing, self healing. Over our words, bodies, our land, waters, forests and fates. Over 2021-2022 we chose to reclaim the imagery of kings and queens, to redefine power, to rewrite our stories and to take the power back.
We stood at the protests in Sri Lanka as the economy crumbled, we brought together artists across borders, we occupied colonial spaces and made monuments to Indigenous nations, and we took back our imaginations, to create visions of future worlds where we are all enthroned.
Shilo Shiv Suleman
Founder and Creative Director
Fearless is a South Asia-based public arts project that creates space to move from fear to love using participative public art.
Founded in 2012 by Indian artist Shilo Shiv Suleman in response to the powerful Nirbhaya protests in India, Fearless has since grown and expanded our work into countries and communities across the Global South. We have worked in over 12 countries, co-creating 48 murals, reclaiming and occupying space with women and marginalized communities - from some of the first large scale feminist public art in Sri Lanka, to the small indigenous village of Olivencia colonized by the Portuguese in Brazil, to the first known public testament to queer masculinities in Beirut.
Fearless’ work is to show up in spaces of fear and isolation, and support communities as they reclaim and occupy public spaces with the images and affirmations they choose. We are fiscally sponsored by Social Good Fund, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit in USA.
Our campaigns manager conceptualises campaigns, implements the campaign strategy, and manages community collaborations and partnerships.
Shilo is the Founder and Creative Director of Fearless. She has painted over 40 murals with women around the world, alchemizing stories of gender based violence into beauty. The Fearless methodology draws deep from traditional knowledge systems and her own personal history with art and healing. She believes that Beauty Saves.
Gayatri is a documentary photographer whose work focuses on the intersection between gender and the environment. She manages all things media and communication for Fearless.
Tehani is a researcher working on intersectional feminist issues related to migration, labour, and the environment. At Fearless she manages organisational strategy, institutional development and fundraising.
Sabika is a performance poet and Founder of Sar-e-Rahguzar: Poetry on the streets. She is a storyteller, facilitator, translator, and organizer. At Fearless she manages Movement, Community, and Advocacy work.
Right after the second wave of the pandemic, and after returning from the Fearless Yatra, we saw the need to set the intention for the Fearless Movement. We wanted to to grow beyond one person; to have local and grassroots Fearless chapters emerge and respond to very local and emergent moments of fear; test and see the Fearless methodology be adapted by different practitioners in different places. The ultimate intention is to have women across South Asia representing themselves and their bodies, reclaiming spaces from fear, building a network of young artists and activists trained in the Methodology that work at intersections of various social justice and rights-based movements. It is also an attempt to create cross-border solidarities.
We gathered for our first retreat in 3 years at a 12th century fortress discovered by a saint, surrounded by salt lakes,sitting in a room where queens came together to build battle strategy while the existing murals on the walls reflected the visions we spoke aloud of a Fearless Future.
And for the three days we envisioned and strategized what the Fearless Movement will look like, i.e.how to move towards impact, understand the kind of resources that would be needed, and how to sustain the movement. We built out a strategy that would guide us in seeding the movement.
The movement will be helmed by Fearless Ambassadors that embody the spirit of fearlessness and:
We already had a list of ambassadors from the previously postponed residency and we added more to the list. We now have 12 ambassadors from across South Asia, 1 from Uzbekistan and 1 from Canada.
The first residency took place in Colombo. On the 27th of March we landed in Sri Lanka, a full two years and a whole pandemic after we were supposed to initially be there. We were bringing together five incredible young artists from across South Asia to become the first group of Fearless Ambassadors. During the course of this residency the artists were trained in the Fearless methodology, mentored by Shilo and equipped to take the movement forward in their own home countries.
This residency was years in the making, the seed for it being born nearly five years ago. With these residencies Shilo is passing on years of knowledge and preciousness of a practice that has been pieced together intentionally over ten years of working with communities.
This year we conducted pasteup workshops for artists in Uzbekistan and Sri Lanka.
While we were building our movement strategy, women in Uzbekistan were doing the first ever pasteup drive on the streets, representing the stories of their grandmothers and other women that came before them.
The first workshop in Sri Lanka was an online one. Artists engaged with concepts of self-representation and story-telling.
While we were in Sri Lanka for our Fearless Residency in March 2022, while the country was facing the worst socio-economic crisis it has witnessed since independence, we created Fearless posters using our methodology and pasted them on the streets in solidarity with the people rallying against the oppressive regime.
Kathmandu, Nepal
Shraddha is an independent muralist, illustrator, and visual artist based in Kathmandu. She has a Masters of Design degree in illustration from Glasgow School of Art. She has been creating street art in Kathmandu since 2011. She is currently part of an illustrators collective called ‘Virangana Comics’ and has recently published the first all women comics anthology in Nepal. Her growing up in the artistic city of Patan has played a formative influence in her role as an artist.
Dakha, Bangladesh
Dibarah found a new form of love and expression through art in her mid-twenties and started looking for ways to combine art and activism. She found the beauty of art comfort refugee children in Jordan and in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh and now she wants to learn a more methodological way to create community mural projects incorporating beautiful rituals. The most ‘fearless’ thing she believes she did is to let her true self shine through hate, and constantly learn healthy boundaries around people she loves. She hopes to apply what she absorbed from this.
Lahore, Pakistan
Leena describes herself as an artist by profession, an activists by trade, and a feminist by choice. She has a BFA in painting from the National College of Art, Lahore. Leena uses giant canvases and mixed media to showcase the ordinary and the forgotten. She is one of the co-organizers of Aurat March, which has become a part of the cultural lexicon of Lahore, and in an annual event held every year on international Women’s Day.
Mandalay, Myanmar
Chuu Wai Nyein is a Mandalay artist who has been active since 2008 when she began studying at the National University of Art and Culture, Mandalay and Technological University, Mandalay. She has had eight solo exhibitions in Mandalay, Yangon, Paris, and most recently, New York, and participated in 30 local and international group exhibitions.
Srinagar, Kashmir
Zoya is an architect, urban planner and artist based in Srinagar, Kashmir. Her works are heavily influenced by her understanding of how human beings interact with their built environment & her key areas of interest are the built heritage and vernacular building traditions of Kashmir. The contrast between particular and universal, between individual and collective, emerges from the city's construction - it's architecture, that is the central theme of my works.
Uzbekistan
Feruza Abdullaeva, also known as Azeema Nur is an artist from Bukhara, Uzbekistan who currently lives and creates in San Diego California. Feruza’s art is inspired by the concept of divine feminine, women and her soul country-India.
Canada
Nicole Roessel Neidhardt is Diné (Navajo) of Kiiyaa'áanii clan on her mother’s side and a blend of European ancestry on her father’s side. Her Diné family is from Round Rock, Arizona and she grew up in Santa Fe, NM on Tewa territory. She has a Master of Fine Arts from OCAD University in Toronto, ON and her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Business minor from the University of Victoria. Her Diné identity is the heart of her artistic practice which encompasses Indigenous Futurisms, Diné Storytelling, and children’s book illustration. She works in a variety of media and contexts such as: mylar stencilling, installation, mural painting and design, illustration, beadwork, hand-poke tattooing, facilitating community-engaged art, and book layout and design.
She is the co-founder of the Innovative Young Indigenous Leaders Symposium.
Kolkata, India�
Nandini, is an artist and activist from Kolkata, India. Their work as an artist is often an extension of their work as an activist, it explores how they navigate identity, queerness and life as a non binary person in a very binary space. Their art explores themes of feminism, intersectionality and inclusion via mythologies, and also looks at how food brings communities together. Apart from this they co organize Amra Odbhut, a queerfeminist art space in Kolkata.
Kabul, Afghanistan
Zahra is an Afghan photographer and graphic designer. She started landscape photography and street documentation in her own living environment with a focus on showing people’s lifestyles around her. She is passionate about working with women, for women, and representing women from unseen corners in public spaces. Currently, she is working on a unique project about families, which strives to show the importance of unity, equality, identity for all family members. Zahra is a moment hunter as a photographer, but she does not limit herself to pictures: she also adds graphics and design to amplify her message.
Delhi, India
Gargi is a visual artist who co-runs a multi-disciplinary arts studio called ‘Post-Art Project’ in Delhi, India. Her practice revolves around the subjects of self image, feminism, gender, sexuality, and identity, and she works across multiple mediums including digital, multimedia, paper, zine, and public spaces. She uses motifs from traditional Indian art in the figures she paints, not just to offer a juxtaposition, or a continuum, but as an exercise to explore the emergence of self.
Colombo, Sri Lanka�
Minal Naomi is an artist and designer based in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Her work explores themes of Identity, Femininity and Sensuality within a South Asian context.
Karachi, Pakistan
Maham Chiragh is a multidisciplinary artist primarily conducting her explorations through visual mediums but also developing work in sound. Her practice also involves collaborating with individuals and communities for collective artistic projects and workshops. She co-founded The Dabke Collective, which serves as a multidisciplinary space for dialogue, experimentation and expression of stories, and has curated several exhibitions in Toronto.
She has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and Sociology from LUMS University (Pakistan), and particularly investigated the ways in which identities interact with space, producing it and being produced by it. Currently she is working as an assistant curator at Karachi Biennale 2022 and serving on the board of directors for Charles Street Video (Toronto). She has been a resident at Casa na Ilha residency (Brazil), the Fearless Collective and Charles Street video (Toronto).
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Vicky is a transgender activist and local artist from Colombo’s slave Island neighbourhood, who identifies as Indian Sri Lankan. Vicky os known for her henna work, which brings new meaning to henna as an art form. Vicky’s work is mostly focused on feminism, freedom, and gender-rights. Together with artist Firi Rahman she co-runs the community art project ‘We Are From Here’ with the diverse community of Slave Island- a movement of breaking stigmas and celebrating the people living there through mural arts. She works fearlessly after having had to face many challenges that pushed her forward.
The first day of the workshop asked the questions:
which looked at personal histories by placing ourselves and our ancestors on a map of South Asia.
which looked at personal trauma and self portraiture as a form of self healing. Each artist made a self portrait.
In this way, Ambassadors were able to represent themselves before we represent other community members.
The second section of the residency focused on social contexts and histories.
which looked at politics, gender, economy and conflict in our home countries, acknowledging the fear.
re-storying our histories with inspiring movements as an affirmation to our lineage.
Through this Ambassadors were able to place themselves within a cultural context, understanding common issues across borders in South Asia.
Through this exercise, artists were able to understand the Fearless Methodology - first through stories from the streets of Fearless history, and then through actually developing their workshops for the days to come.
Each woman stepped into the map of South Asia and spoke of her creation story, the land and the people she came from. We drew onto this map mountain ranges, deltas and roots to represent home. It quickly became very evident that we all shared histories and came from places that were closely connected.
Before we claim to represent anyone else we need to be able to represent ourselves with as much clarity, honesty and healing as possible.
The self portraiture exercise became a starting point to learning painting techniques, but also as a reflective tool for Ambassadors to see
themselves with clarity.
Rewriting our social histories, we listened to each other speak about fears that exist in our countries today - drawing out their political histories and looking at how they’ve manifested in our current contexts.
After a very heavy morning looking at the wound, we spent the afternoon telling each other about resistance movements from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. We moved from pain to catharsis, acknowledging how we stand on the shoulders of the women and movements that came before us – Lala Rukh, Chipko Movement, Rage against Rape, Guerilla Girls, Qandeel Baloch, Women Action Forum. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
We took the Ambassadors through our process of designing and facilitating Fearless workshops, sharing our learnings from the multiple contexts we’ve worked in.
On the third day we got into the story of Fearless, how it was formed and what it has become today. We spoke about the methodology and the thinking behind how we use public, participative art that speaks to the idea of self-representation and reclamation.
Gargi and Maham collaborated with the Sisterhood Initiative who work towards creating safe spaces for Muslim women in Sri Lanka to come together and share experiences, engage in curated discussions and find a sense of community among each other.
In their workshop they spoke about what it means to be a Muslim woman in Sri Lanka today. Each woman spoke about her relationship with faith and what it’s like to hold faith in a patriarchal and divisive society where women's bodies are policed. The women shared their collective relationship with other communities and the different forms of allyship they wished existed.
What emerged was an Indian and a Pakistani artist working together to create a powerful image of interfaith solidarity. An image ‘rooted in the unique stories of resistance’ of a group of women who continue to create spaces, raise their voices, and hold up one another in the face of a deeply divisive environment.
‘Our roots entwine, we are divine.’
Leena, Dibarah and Vicky collaborated with the We Are From Here Project which is an artist collective from Slave Island, Colombo.
Through murals and artistic interventions in Slave Island, they highlight community stories as ways to challenge misconceptions about the area.
Along with a group of women from Slave Island, this workshop engaged with the idea of erasure. The neighbourhood, originally set up as a camp for slaves brought in under Portuguese rule, is under threat of displacement, with rapid urbanisation and gentrification of its surroundings.
What emerged was a monument to the strength, resilience and power of women who live there, co-created by artists from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. One that speaks to the generations of women who have come before and will come after, and how they are rooted to this land.
‘I have found strength in myself and in the community.’
~ This mural is the first representation of interfaith harmony in the city of Colombo and exists as a first representation of Muslim women.
Painted during a national emergency.
Our workshop with ‘Sisterhood Initiative’ spoke to the hope of allyship and solidarity between interfaith communities in Sri Lanka, a country ridden with communal issues.
For Gargi and Maham, this was the first time painting a 40 foot mural
The affirmation and symbolism speaks to a universal theme.
~ First large scale mural that represents the women of Slave Island in their own neighbourhood.
It exists as one of the largest murals in Colombo, and the biggest feminist monument.
Painting process was immersive and engaged. Despite power cuts and protests, 15 women turned up with their children everyday.
It became a beacon of hope and power during a very intense political moment.
For Leena, Vicky and Dibarah, this was the first large-scale mural ever painted by them.
As world leaders and corporate representatives gathered inside buildings in Glasgow for COP26 to make decisions about the climate that will affect us all, Fearless stood in solidarity with Indigenous leaders who had come as delegates- autonomous and self-determining- to represent their own nations and deliver their messages.
Together, across nations, we co-created an image of two leaders, like King and Queen, gazing down into the streets of a city built out of slavery. Not resisting or asking for acknowledgement – but already, inherently, and always- sovereign and self-determining.
The mural affirms, “Bow Down, Honour the Roots”.
Gotagogama was a protest site and utopian village set up by a network of activists, citizens, artists and youth groups, working together to provide support to each other and resist the establishment.
We facilitated a workshop to look at how we want power and governance to be manifested in this future. Each one of us imagined a collective and lateral leadership chosen by the community, who have an inclusive and progressive outlook and center justice for marginalized communities at the core of their work.
Painted in shades of flame and gold stand for future leaders, making their own maps, defining their own visions of the future.
“We are our own leaders, We take our power back
Kinder Cartographies
Zahra Story, Protection for Artists, Paris paste up, HAQ,
SHILO
Zahra Sotyr- shilo
Protection for Artists
GAYATRI
Paris pasteup story
HAQ
After nearly 2 years of virtual meetings, we finally met two of our Ambassadors Zahra Khodadadi (Afghanistan) and Chuu Wai Nyein (Myanmar) in France. Along with a small group of artists who’ve also had to flee their home countries, we spent a day talking about the physical and emotional borders that we’ve had to cross and the ways in which we carry home with us: in food, community, laughter, the art we make.
Even though they were meeting for the first time, Zahra and Chuu found many powerful parallels between their circumstances, both being forced away from their homes by oppressive and authoritative governments that left no room for democratic (especially women’s) autonomy.
It became important for us to provide a safe space where they could reflect on and renew their visions as artists and creators. Using the Fearless Methodology, they made a representation of themselves that speaks to ideas of identity, belonging and borders.
Two young women, one Afghani and the other Burmese painted their bodies publically on to a wall for the first time.
“My land in my veins,
Here we find each other.”
In an intimate gathering in Paris, we hosted an evening with first and second generation immigrants from Algeria, Morocco, Palestine, Afghanistan, Myanmar, India.
Both Zahra and Chuu presented their individual practices as artists and story-tellers, and over the course of the evening with song and more sharing, this became a safe space for everyone to speak about the borders they have crossed.
Zahra Khodadadi, our Fearless Ambassador from Afghanistan stood bravely on the streets of Kabul months before the Taliban took over, and made a self portrait of herself riding a bike. Within a few days, the faces on the posters were blacked out by fundamentalist forces.
While Zahra managed to leave the country just before the Taliban takeover, her family was still trapped there and at risk. Zahra reached out to us for assistance.�
Through a series of messages and a lot of conversations and finding connections, we managed to get in touch with the right people. We kept coordinating and finally Zahra’s family were able to leave the country safely.
As a small independent organisation, for us this proved that sometimes a trail of contacts, a deep belief and a leap of faith can make the impossible, possible. We’ve seen enough magic to know that it exists. It was also a reality check that artists in our Fearless community are in need of a support network when emergency situations arise, as we live in increasingly repressive contexts. In ten years of running this organization, this was the most fearless thing we have done.
We first met Chuu Wai in Yangon in 2019, before the pandemic and the coup. A young feminist artist, she came with her box of paints - vibrant and full of vitality.
A few months later in Feb 2021- the military occupation of Myanmar took over the streets. Chuu went out to the protests with paper and paint and began a campaign called “Write for Right”
She wrote political slogans on posters for protests, a seemingly simple act of resistance.
But soon after she had policemen turn up with guns att her house . Chuu left her country, family and studio to set up her life in Kyive, Ukraine in August 2021 only to leave everything once again when the war began.
She doesn’t know when she will be able to return to her country again, but continues to rebuild her life and make fierce political art. �
Over the last few years, vocal and assertive Muslim women have woken up in India to find their names on auctioning apps - from Sulli Deals to Bulli Bai, being lathi-charged, locked up in jails, harassed, and much more. Efforts are continuously made to dehumanize, discourage and remove them from all spaces- from schools and workplaces to social media.
As part of the continued attacks by trolls and the right wing, they are proposing to ban the hijab, making young Muslim women choose between their right to study, and their belief and right to wear what they want.
To extend our solidarity to Muslim women, and to stand up against the discrimination that hijab-wearing women face, the Fearless artist movement did a series of portraits under the hashtag #wedefineus and #haq. We requested Muslim women to share pictures of themselves in hijab, which were then illustrated by our global community of artists, accompanied by their stories - for the world to see their fierceness and power, and to reclaim the spaces they were being removed from.
#WEDEFINEUS
Sumana Bano by
Shilo Shiv Suleman
Maliha Yousuf by
Madiha Shams
India Kazmi by
Sanjana Hariprasad
Samina Yasmeen Naqvi by Pavitra Shanth
Sumayyah Nisa by Reha Ahmed
Anamta Zehra by Srushti Paranjpe
Talat Emad by Jose
Raheel Tehzib Husain
by Abeer Tehzeeb Husain
These posters were exhibited at the Goethe Zentrum Hyderabad and was inaugurated by the then Consul General of Germany, Ms Karin Stoll.
They were also held up in various protests including the candlelight vigil in Bangalore, where people gathered peacefully in solidarity with Muslim women and their demand for equal right to education and opposing all forms of discrimination.
In the midst of the Fearless Residency as citizen -led protests started building momentum across Colombo we put out a call to action - an open invitation for anyone to come join us in making affirmative protest posters that could be held out in the streets.
After just a day of making the announcement and spreading the word we were joined by 30 - 40 artists and their friends who followed our methodology and made a series of powerful posters.
We were honoured to speak about our work at the exhibition celebrating the archives of Geoffrey Bawa, in Colombo. Along with We Are From Here Project, we explored the use of murals and public art interventions in addressing personal histories and socio-cultural and political realities.
Launch of 3 new short films
Social media campaign for COP26 in partnership with Greenpeace and implemented a social media campaign for COP26 in partnership with Greenpeace
Design and implemented two rapid response campaigns
Grew our Instagram following by 3576
Haq Campaign
15 posters
19,232 combined social media accounts reached
The year 2021-22 was the year we fully re-emerged back onto the (global) streets. From high impact murals in Scotland and Sri Lanka, to rapid response campaigns responding to incidents of hate across India, the Fearless team and our movement of artists across the world created beauty that provided reprieve and hope in a seemingly ever hateful world.
Hosting our first Fearless South Asia Residency was a moment of triumph for our team, as years of planning came to fruition, and we were finally able to coronate our first batch of Ambassadors. Seeing their first murals go up in Colombo (and incidentally, the first ever Fearless murals in Sri Lanka) gave us a glimpse of what the future would look like for this Fearless Movement we were working so hard to seed.
Our team grew this year as well, as we brought in Sabika Abbas as our Movement Manager. Sabika has brought her phenomenal energy and years of organising experience and community work to our team, and has strengthened the Fearless Movement work immensely.
This year we continued our relationships with our core donors and would like to thank Mama Cash, Oak Foundation and Equality Fund for their ongoing support, as well as our project funders Greenpeace. A huge thank you is owed to our community of small donors, whose trust and faith in our work continues to guide us as we bring beauty to the streets.
Tehani Ariyaratne
Chief Operations Officer