International Women's Day Catalog | ZIMETRA

@zimetra.art

MAR 2021

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

Catalog

Inspired by Women to Inspire Women

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“Think like a queen.

A queen is not afraid to fail.

Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.”

– Oprah Winfrey

THIS CATALOG INCLUDES WORK FROM

8 COUNTRIES

13 ARTWORKS 6 WRITTEN WORKS TO COMMEMORATE WOMEN’S DAY & TO HONOR THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF WOMEN

CANADA

Ruth Saporito

PAKISTAN

Manal Dar

INDIA Abongsudeshna

Arka Ray Chaudhuri

The Jay Mistry

INDONESIA

Airin Efferin

SRI LANKA

Chantal Ratnayeke

Devika Brendon

Kavee Perera

Nisali Perera

Paramie Jayakody

Saakya Rajawasan

Sachini Wijewardena

Vasi Udurawane

LATVIA

Agnese Rudzīte

UNITED KINGDOM

Erin Mali Julian

PHILIPPINES

Mai T. Datuin

FROM US TO YOU It is indeed a great pleasure to introduce the catalog for International Women’s Day with the theme of this month (March 2021) being ‘Inspired by Women to Inspire Women’. As a Woman owned & run non-profit platform we attempt to keep the on-going conversation strong. International Women’s Day may be celebrated on just one day but what we believe is celebrating & empowering women each and every day. It is important to celebrate & honor the achievements of women, promote women’s rights and raise awareness about equality & freedom of women.

Even though we talk about women having equal rights & respect, it is not implemented as it ideally should be. If there is one thing that should be prominently talked about, it is the difficulties women go through in their workplaces. These include sexual harassment and salaries that are half of what is paid to men to name a few. Women ask for less income because they are not confident enough and they still get paid the minimum wages despite having the equal value as men in their work. So how difficult is it to get to the top? Women in decision making roles are still the exception rather than the norm. We see many instances where women are told to step down and are constantly told that their ideas & opinions value less. Women’s voices are tied down from major decisions.

We must promote independent & strong women. How a woman is seen now is very different from the past. Women running the world is something that we can actually see increasingly as every year passes. Women are breaking glass ceilings & working hard to become independent and worthy of respect. She is taking life by the horns and not afraid to push all the boundaries.

We are moving toward gender balance but there is a whole lot of

preparation, contribution & conversation that needs to be built up.

As men and women it is important to support & lift each other up as we are all equal beings. We need to put the effort & reduce violence against women, we need to stop bashing others out of jealousy. If we see someone struggling, we should lend a hand. Speak up. A few words to someone in need is equal to giving a speech about inspiration, self-love & success to them.

These injustices occur in almost every country and in some places even more. We are not able to move hearts by doing one good justice, it is a contributed & constant effort. We must create a world where all gender identities are recognized, respected for and treated equally with dignity. Create a world great enough that we will leave a better legacy for the new generations.

This catalog contains voluntary submissions from 8 countries honoring the achievements of women and commemorating International Women’s Day. Art is a great form of communication. ZIMETRA is a platform that speaks about such important conversations through the avenues of art, poetry & prose.

Extend our message by sharing this catalog among your friends, families & the public in your respective country. We urge you to keep the conversation strong. There is much to be done for women to be respected & valued. We ask of you to constantly remind women you know & even women you do not know, to support them, inspire them and lift each other up by sharing words of kindness.

- ZIMETRA Team

CANADA

RUTH SAPORITO (b.1973) The pieces are symbolic and represent women’s flight to action and celebrate all their achievements.

Ruth Saporito, 2019, Crowns & Wings, Analogue Collage, 30cm x 23cm

INDIA

ABONGSUDESHNA (b.1988) In the present time what is the definition of humanity?

From my childhood, I witnessed how the surroundings of our neighbourhood changed, landscape converted to cityscape. Greeneries transformed into concrete skyscrapers and the mechanical growth of urbanisation gave impact on individuals. People became less humane day by day. Their thrust for power and greed transformed them into just another building blocks of this void society. Even they prey on their own species for fun. They rape, they kill, they try to genocide!

Abongsudeshna, 2020, Humor, Humiliation, Humanity, Ink on Paper, 30cm x 30cm

ARKA RAY CHAUDHURI (b.1988) Nature choose to portrait herself in a mysterious way and we found the fabulous creation called women. Woman creates her own success, have self love, follow her heart and enrich the society. She knows her necessities and completes them with the essentiality ie, her own self.

Arka Ray Chaudhuri, 2019, ‘Sampuma’ The Complete Women, Oil on Canvas, 46cm x 36cm

THE JAY MISTRY (b.1999) The time when the protest began for black life matters i started making a work which shows the beauty of black, and also to show how they have the same blood color as the other humans. It is said that color, size and shape of balloon doesn’t decide how far it will fly, but whats within it, does. So i believe the same goes with humans too.

The Jay Mistry, 2020, Colorless Beauty, Mixed Media on Paper, 42cm x 30cm

INDONESIA

AIRIN EFFERIN (b. 1987) Dazzling Terror is an imagination of what could be when subjugated women realize the power they actually have within themselves. They don’t have to be meek and accept any situation as it is. Once they are able to realize that they can walk away or even fight back, they will grow into stronger individuals that are able to set their own lines and boundaries to achieve the life they want.

Dazzling Terror Oh yes We will fight With daggers, swords Knives, poisons Oh yes, we can We can burn Destruct Destroy We can stab With our words With our anger With our hatred Oh yes, we can I won’t say stop I won’t say go I won’t say please “Let’s have peace?”

Bullshit.

Rubbish.

You cannot make a treaty with liars You cannot make peace with cowards

Bridges require bravery It requires balls!

Relationships require sacrifice Sacrificing yourself, even your life I want a war I want to fight Because I don’t believe your words Nor do I believe your eyes As you betray me While looking straight into my naked soul How shall we fight, then?

I will fight, with my pen With my mind With my brilliance With my wit With my courage With all my heart And head And energy And passion And you know, I have such passion I will fight With the wind screaming The waves crushing The hurricane thundering The tornado ripping

It will be dazzling terror You won’t be able to look away You won’t be able to run At how captivating the carnage is When we finally, begin the fight.

LATVIA

AGNESE RUDZīTE (b.1979) A portrait of a woman like an hourglass is embroidered on a worker’s jacket. Time passes through each of us. If there is a larger grain of sand, then...

Agnese Rudzite, 2020, Hourglass, Textile, 100cm x 60cm

PHILIPPINES

MAI T. DATUIN (b.1986) A strong woman that dared to express her genuine personality regardless of judgements. She defied female beauty standards and embraced her weirdness. One of the most famous and remembered women artists, my personal favorite, Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderón, or simply known as Frida Kahlo.

Mai T. Datuin, 2020, La Musa, Watercolor on Paper, 15cm x 9cm

PAKISTAN

MANAL DAR (b.2001) This piece was in response to the ongoing conflict during Aurat March in 2019. I felt angry and helpless towards all the hate thrown towards women who were peacefully protesting for their rights and for those women and children who have been victims of this cruel society for too long - victims of gang-rape, acid killings, honour killings, the list goes on and on and it isn’t seeming to stop anytime soon. I feel it is our duty, as privileged members of society, to provide that voice to those numerous Pakistani women who do not have one to speak up for themselves and their basic human rights.

Manal Dar, 2019, Haqq ki Talaash ka Musafir, Illustration, 28cm x 21cm

SRI LANKA

CHANTAL RATNAYEKE Feminine Heroines I am as delicate As a nuclear warhead misogyny be aware of The dread of my radioactive tread Roam wild and free The jungle of cubicles abounds With Apish sexual harassers To hound me down bound Arduous climb upward Manly horned hands grope Past glutton eyes of jealousy Almost at the arena of the top post

Smash the ceiling To glassy smithereens Rule with a manist rod Maximum efficiency queens Mean men as obsequious incel teens No rest on laurels Brotherhood invest in petroleum Billions at the expense of the green Take paternal leave to be children Beyond my ken to join an assery of men I am as a delicate As dormant nuclear powers Wisely weaponised to scare To acclimatise and equalise a wary climate of manpower Duty to empower a sustainable sisterhood of clean energy bowers Give rise to stable and able reservoirs of compassionately feminine super powers.

DEVIKA BRENDON (b.1967) Activating I’m wondering about a phrase someone I know keeps using: She says that every day recently she feels as if she is being ‘eye-raped’.

I know we call things by different names And communication should make a bridge.

But not this time. Because I just do not understand.

There’s real assault going on all around us: people are outraged and abused and harassed.

They haven’t had their personal safety respected for so long they don’t know what it’s like to have a right to it.

I think maybe she experiences this because she’s living in a specifically degraded place.

She says it’s because she’s so sensitive.

She can feel things that people don’t say.

And maybe it’s me, suggesting she get a pair of specially modified glasses to deflect the repellant gazes directed at her.

Yes, me, who grades assault like the legal system does, telling people what to feel.

Giving them advice after the fact.

I don’t see it happening because I don’t make eye contact with people like that.

I don’t want to hear or see the things that ought not be done.

I don’t want them to be done to me.

KAVEE PERERA & SACHINI WIJEWARDENA (b.1967)

Kavee Perera, 2021, Never Too Small, Charcoal on Paper, 23cm x 19cm

Never Too Small “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”

She stokes a fire, growing, raging, warming, warning of our own wicked desire.

In her voice I hear an urgency, a weight, that resonates With every atom of my being.

The anger of an age, the sharpest blade, Striking true, striking through The hearts of the young the world over.

I glimpse the possibility, the opening of a door.

A world where a young girl can be more than nothing, unwanted and ignored.

In her eyes I see, reflected, a world that could be if we rise together against complacency.

Am I naïve? I dare to dream of a day where schoolgirls will not have to take to the streets for the future of humanity, where the people can eat, breathe, and be in peace.

Poetry written by Sachini Wijewardena

NISALI PERERA (b.1996) This is a tree that has the silhouette of a woman hidden in the tree trunk. I used a copper thread to highlight the silhouette. It is inspired by how women, specifically young women are often hidden in this chaotic and toxic society.

Nisali Perera, 2016, Hidden, Mixed Media on Paper, 30cm x 21cm

PARAMIE JAYAKODY (b.1997) ‘Paint on Canvas’ the poem is a tribute for domestic abuse survivors, an incident that escalated last year amidst the pandemic. Asilent nod acknowledging the hardship they endure and the strength they display.

‘Failed Concilium’ story is a satirical commentary on a society where mental strength, emotions, and compassion are valued, and the lives of women in a world where they are the queens.

#YouAreNotAlone The celebration went on They laughed, they hugged, they kissed.

The sun shone down from a clearer sky Smiling bright, surprised.

The air was clean of fear The air was clean The people talked and laughed as one Together through pain contrived.

Children played, adults talked, The city sang with joy As sun and wind and sky and breeze Retouched so many deprived.

One house, one person outside, Enjoying stretching their wings.

Smiled, anticipating a flight Away from a long long time.

Inside the house, in a dark corner Blue and black on a canvas yellowed She couldn’t go out, couldn’t be carefree She hugged her knees and cried.

Failed Concilium “What are you waiting for? Finish it. Finish it!”

Raya looked into his eyes for an endless moment.

“FINISH IT!” …

She woke up drenched in sweat, chest heaving, and breaths coming in short gasps. It was the same dream, every night, and her sleep was suffering as a result. Raya reached over and flicked on her bedside lamp. 4.30 am. She might as well get up and report to duty early.

As she groaned and rolled out of bed, her phone pinged with the familiar text from Ralph. “You coming in today?” Sending him a quick text in the affirmative, Raya headed towards the bathroom. Ralph had only joined their troops a couple months ago, and while the other women tried not to treat him differently, it was hard to not look at him askance or not trust him with the heavy duty work, they were so used to men being unable to deal with it.

She smiled as she thought back to how it had been five years ago, when it was women who were treated like they couldn’t handle it. That had been before the war, before the concilium weapons.

As she stepped out of her house an hour later, she met up with Maria, who was a medi-psychic in the 32nd battalion.

Maria was a kind soul, patient and enduring. Too bad Raya was in the 21st battalion.

As they greeted each other, Raya waved to Duncan, Maria’s long time boyfriend, who was taking the kids to school. Coming over, Duncan gave Maria a quick kiss before wishing them luck today.

They’d need it.

-As they entered HQ and split up to their divisions, Raya sensed something off in the air. When Ralph met her at the door, all jumpy, she knew her instincts were right. “New girl?” she asked.

“And new mission,” he responded, giving her a salute. Raya sighed. Of course.

As she entered the room, she was instantly battered with strong, harsh, uncontrolled emotion. After five years in service, she didn’t need to be hooked onto the concilium to feel it.

Neither did a few of her older veteran members.

Exchanging a glance of shared pain with them, she turned to the girl who was standing at the center of the room.

“Name?”

“Kayla” “Age?” “22” “Parents?”

“Mom’s concilium failed,” there was a collective intake of breath. “And no idea about dad.”

Should’ve known. All that emotion had to have come from

somewhere.

“I’ll train with you separately when the next shift takes over.

Ladies, into position!”

As Raya linked with her concilium, she focused on letting out her rage and pity on behalf of the girl, her shock and sadness for her mother, and her bone-deep exhaustion all out in a focused stream. The concilium powered up, the glow turning from blue to red to a dazzling white in just a few seconds.

Raya’s troops were used to it, but she heard Kayla suck in an awed breath.

Ignoring her, she let the concilium draw her in, losing herself in the focus.

-After the next battalion took over for the 2nd shift, Raya nodded to Kayla and they entered the training room.

“You must be familiar with how we work if your mother was military, yes?”

“No ma’am, she...she didn’t want me in this life.”

Raya didn’t need kids to understand that sentiment. She saw the way Maria never mentioned work in front of the kids, the unspoken hope in all the women that their children would never need to do this if they finished the war for them.

“Right, soldier, in that case, let’s get you warmed up.”

Walking with her to the training concilium in the center of the room, Raya explained the basics to Kayla. She nodded. “So basically, we hook our minds to it, and put our emotions in, and that channels it and allows us to fight the war?”

“It’s a bit more difficult than that,” Ralph’s voice sounded behind us.

Kayla turned towards him with a sneer. “How would you know, you’re just a man.”

“Soldier!” Raya’s voice was harsh and unflinching. “We don’t get our work done here by putting down others!”

Kayla hung her head, chastised.

“Ralph, why don’t you explain to her how it works?” Raya asked.

“Right. So, Kayla, what happens is, a concilium will connect to your mind, but it won’t just pick up on your emotions, no matter how strong they might be, if they’re just floating there.

You have to focus them, and channel them in a very specific way to the concilium. What we do is imagine our emotions going from our mind to the concilium like a rope. That powers the concilium on, and allows you to build your weapons, use them, and fight. So how you do that is…”

His words became a background buzz as Raya remembered the nightmare of five years ago. The invasion of the aliens, dubbed the X’s, after a famous fictional professor no one likes to mention anymore.

The X’s took the humans by surprise, because while we went to outer space to fight them with weapons and our physical bodies, their psychic weapons and mental defenses shredded us. Millions died before our scientists and inventors came up with our own physic weaponry systems, the conciliums.

And then thousands more died before we discovered that men were, for the most part, unable to handle the mental strain of fighting a war in their minds. Many went crazy, and for some, their consciousness left entirely, with only an empty shell left behind. Failed conciliums, we called them. It was considered the ultimate sacrifice to the service, mind and soul. As the years progressed, failed conciliums happened more frequently, even women cracking under the strain of never ending war.

And unlike physical exhaustion, one could never be entirely sure if they were cracking until they did. Troops were allowed to resign at any time if they felt their minds failing, but there are always those who fail to notice the warning signs.

She looked back at Kayla. And then there are some mothers who would willingly die trying to build a better world for their daughters.

-The next day, Kayla was hooked up to her very first concilium.

“Now conciliums aren’t like guns that you can just switch every day and not notice anything,” Raya warned. “Conciliums link with your mind, you’ll likely use this until you’re discharged.”

Kayla beamed.

“So the more effectively you focus your emotions, the lighter the power will be. You can go online and start building your weapons when you’re in orange, but you can go up to white, which is the best. It will take some time however.”

“You went to white in a few seconds,” she pointed out. Several of the women, and Ralph, laughed.

“That’s because it’s her, girl,” Winona, one of the best veterans, laughed. “It takes the rest of us a few hours to go fully white, if we do at all.”

“So once you’re online,” Ralph jumped in, “the concilium will essentially give you a view of the battlefield, so you’ll feel a bit like you’re in a VR game, because you’ll be in space, but you’ll still feel your seat and the real world around you. Once you’re there, focus on building your weapon, and any defense you need. If you’re getting hit too much, withdraw back here.

It takes a few tries to get the hang of it.”

Kayla was looking very unsure, so Raya nodded to Skye, the lead sharpshooter in the squad. Knowing what she needed, Skye went up to Kayla, a slender figure with bright blue hair and tattoos twining up her arms. Kayla’s eyes went wide.

“I hope you read a lot Kayla,” Skye’s deceptively mild voice hid the steel underneath. “The more creative you are, the easier it is to build a good setup. The more focused you are, the easier it is to maintain it.” Skye had been an artist before the X’s invaded. Her painters focus and creativity made her the deadliest person on the team.

“So that’s how you do it,” Kayla breathed.

“Soldiers, into position!” Our squad was up.

-The fastest to hit white space, Raya was up in the battlefield in no time, and quickly willed into existence a shield turret, with a 360-degree defensive shield, and more than one gun.

Even before she was finished, she saw three blue fighter jets streak ahead of her, dropping missiles on the Xs mind shields.

Skye’s ability to independently control and hold more than one structure was amazing and terrifying.

As the battle raged on, Raya saw a small pistol materialize next to her, and by instinct extended her mental shield to cover Kayla. And that’s how they spent the next few hours, Kayla’s gun growing bigger and more confident each time she withdrew and materialized again.

-A week later, Kayla asked The Question.

“So what do the Xs look like?”

As the squad all choked and coughed and sputtered around us, Winona waved a chicken leg around. “No one knows,” she declared. “It’s not like we’ve met them, just their mind battles.

At least they’ve met the first few million of us when they killed them.”

The mood grew dark and somber as we trudged back to our conciliums after lunch.

-As Kayla grew more confident in her abilities, she started moving away from Raya, and soon, Raya noticed something

very rare and strange. She was practicing invisibility.

Spies and invisible fighters were very prized, but only a rare few ever attempted to do it, because one split second of lost focus would mean disaster for you, sometimes away from your squadmates. However, Kayla seemed quite good at it. Raya noticed, and got Skye to work with her, practicing more and more after hours every day.

“Why do you want to be a stealth fighter?” Raya asked one day, before they connected.

“I don’t know,” Kayla shrugged. “I guess it feels powerful killing them without them ever knowing what happened?”

Raya felt, for the first time, doubt in whether she was doing the right thing.

-As months went by, Kayla grew comfortable in both the squad and her stealth abilities, until the squad actively used it in strategies. However, Raya noticed that she lost track of Kayla more often. She wondered what was happening, and why Raya couldn’t account for her invisible gunfire.

Resolving to find out once and for all, she decided to go in early one day and wait for Kayla, who always arrived early, to have a quick talk. Imagine her surprise when she arrived two hours early to find Kayla already on her concilium.

Quickly connecting and going online, Raya willed herself to materialize next to Kayla. Without knowing that Raya was also online, Kayla wouldn’t be on the lookout, which meant Raya could go and see what was happening. Just in case Kayla

was in battle, she focused on becoming invisible, something she could only do for a few minutes at a time.

She materialized dangerously close to the frontlines. Dodging physic bullets and concilium weapons, she was about to withdraw thinking it was a mistake when she saw Kayla materialize right in front of her, which also happened to be right in front of the Xs guns.

About to shout a warning and materialize herself, Raya was stunned into silence when the Xs stopped firing at the sight of her and parted enough for her to enter their shield between them. Jaw dropping, Raya followed.

-Stepping behind the shield, Raya heard Kayla’s voice up ahead, around a corner.

“Hello father.”

What?

The shock made her invisibility break, and Raya leaped around the corner, her shield turret already material, to see Kayla and another…..human?

The Xs were humans.

Clearly with some differences, as these ones looked slighter than them, and they had a strange purple glow around their eyes. A glow, she realized, that was there in Kayla’s pale lavender eyes.

Kayla’s father was an X. No wonder her mother’s mind had broken. The burden of

fighting against the people she had fallen in love with….

How had Kayla known? And had her military time all been to learn invisibility and meet her father?

All these thoughts went through Raya’s mind in a split second, as she levelled her gun at the man in front of her. At this range, with their puny physical strength, this would be as easy as gunning down a civilian human.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked, harshly. His eyes had no hope for acceptance from her. Only understanding. “Finish it. Finish it!”

Raya looked into their eyes for an endless moment.

“FINISH IT!” Raya looked away.

She withdrew.

Written by Paramie Jayakody

SAAKYA RAJAWASAN (b.2001) No matter what you throw at us we can overcome anything.

Saakya Rajawasan, 2021, Come At Me, Mixed Media on Paper, 32cm x 29cm

VASI UDURAWANE (b.1995) “I had to make some #transgender related art as an art therapy piece for my therapist who is an absolutely amazing person who has really been a massive help to me with how my life is going because as a #transwoman who is in a strange place in terms of my social place and frankly just growing up far from a metropolitan area and with hardly any friends and constant controlling...BUT I have a number of futures to choose from SO. MANY. My past is just a small, limited space & a dark one too. But my present is #queer & openly too (due to an iota of social privilege but I have to embrace myself or live in the dark forever frankly) & here we are!”

Vasi Udurwane, 2020, Untitled, Mixed Media on Paper, 36cm x 26cm

UNITED KINGDOM

ERIN MALI JULIAN (b.1998) This painting aims to capture movement through the expressive body shapes. I love the intimacy created in nude paintings and I hope this piece encourages the good feelings we have from being in our own beautiful skin.

Erin Mali Julian, 2021, Sunday Morning, Acrylic on Canvas, 90cm x 90cm

This piece was inspired by 1950’s fashion and made from recycled tobacco pouches, through the process of making the dress I was experimenting with shape and aimed for it to take a striking and bold form, hoping to symbolise women’s strength and beauty.

Erin Mali Julian, 2018, Smoking Kills, Costume Design, Photographed by Gareth Rhys

“The world needs strong women who will lift and build others. Who will love and be loved. Women who live bravely, both tender and fierce; women of indomitable will.”

–Amy Tenney

@zimetra.art zenoldacom@gmail.com