Taanu - story of a girl who owns no toilet

A mini documentary about a girl from Paradsinga village, representing many of the other girls, who own no toilet for defecation.

This came about during the artist residency program, by Gram Art Project: Eco Sanitation – Negotiating Routes: Ecologies of the Byways V, part of Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Dehli, Nagpur, Paradsinga, India. I was one of the artists in residence in June 2014 where I conducted several art therapy sessions with the villagers.

During the time of this program I was engaged with the community through various activities including educating the villagers about environmental issues such as ecology and sanitation. It is noted that around 2.5 billion people have no luxury of defecating privately and Paradsinga was one place I witnessed to have fallen within that number. Therefore, the determination towards having to educate them through art-therapeutic based activities and puppet making, a human-sized pull puppet was constructed by the collective effort of the village boys. This way, it not only brought the community closer but also proved to be a great success in achieving our goal i.e. imparting the knowledge of using a toilet seat, which many in fact none knew how to. Hence, the sculptural piece symbolized as a testimony of a healthy long-term relationship with the community folks. 

The video is a witnessing mini documentary unfolding the horrors of a young girl who does not have the facility in defecating privately, instead she goes out in the open near a water source in the middle of the night to answer the call to nature.