“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” – Maya Angelou
Artists often play a key role in bringing social changes across cultures and countries, raising voice against issues ranging from violence to sexism to child trafficking. Gifted with the expressive talent, artists challenge the existing narratives, highlight the gaps present in them and inspire solutions through art.
Our very talented faculty and students at Pearl Academy set out to do the same this year through actively supporting by UN’s Orange Label Project.
The Orange Label Project’, run and supported by the UN Trust Fund and London College of Fashion, UAL is a global initiative to End Violence against Women by engaging and connecting with new audiences, particularly young people, through a series of creative activities. To mark the 20th anniversary of UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UNTF), fashion disciplines were brought together to club creative ideas to fight the violence against women. Students and faculty from fashion disciplines from around the world, and across disciplines, were invited to produce a piece of work incorporating the project colour orange. The United Nation has proclaimed 25th of every month as International “Orange Day”.
Pearl Academy has been actively supporting the cause by observing Orange Day every month through a series of initiatives which have gone a long way in sensitizing our students and faculty on the issue. Panel discussions were organized at our Delhi and Mumbai campuses with speakers from various fields such as media, fashion, arts and business to widen and take the discussion of women empowerment to all sections of the society.
Our students narrated various anecdotes and actively debated with the speakers on various facets of the subject to make these panel discussions more invigorating.
Education is considered to be one of the biggest sources of emancipation and at Pearl Academy, we are ensuring that our young fashion students incorporate the learnings from these initiatives not just in their collections, but also in their demeanour and attitude at their workplaces.
As a part of the Orange Label Project, Pearlites also participated in illustration, film, journalism and photography categories and created works of arts aimed at raising awareness of the core message, educating, informing and involving audiences worldwide. A positive message that ‘together we can eliminate this problem’ was sent out through these entries. On 25th November the winners were announced by the UNTF and our Pearlites gloriously won top laurels in four categories:
Sumedha Sekar from FMC Level 3 won the first prize of 500 pounds in Fashion Journalism category for her article “Breaking the Myth: Fallen Princess”. Sumedha in her award winning piece theorizes the works of Dina Goldstein, a visual artist whose work in editorial and documentary style photography is known for its connections to pop surrealism. Dina takes a feminist perspective on the most popular women from the history and re-writes their stories through her pictures.
Arshti Narang & Bhavnoor Minocha from FMC Level 1 too won first prize and 500 pounds under Fashion Illustration category. The duo challenges the global fashion magazines forillustrating and propagating physical and mental violence faced by women.
Abhineet Dang from Communication Design Level 3 won the second prize in Fashion Films category. Abhijeet shot a small video that highlights the violence against women and girls that is rooted in gender-based discrimination, social norms and gender stereotypes.
Our faculty too made us proud by winning the Second prize in Fashion Photography category. Shalini Gupta, Rohit Dhingra, Neha Dimri & Navaid Mehtab worked together on a series of images to change the perception of women being the weaker sex due to pre-programed gender expectations, hoping to curb the premise for violent behaviour against women.
