Inktober challenge by two city artists create a storm on social media

Artist Akshayaa Selvaraj has initiated #ifeelyoutober to create a safe space where everyone can express, be aware, acknowledge the emotions and feel their trauma memories/stories without bypassing it through art. “Every year, I consider the Inktober challenge as an opportunity to explore myself. But this year, I didn’t feel like following the usual trend. ‘I Feel You’ was a long-time instinct for myself and I wanted to extend this to everyone through #ifeelyoutober without any prompts. We don’t speak much about trauma — we tend not to talk about it or divert it. Why do we do it — because we believe we feel safe and normal by running away from it. That’s what we have been conditioned with,” says Akshayaa.

The artist has put out an open call on social media asking people to share their stories with her. She will be sketching emotions, expressions of people’s trauma, objects/elements that remind them of it, tangible/intangible spaces that trigger it, places and habits people have abandoned because of it. “If anyone can resonate with this and feel safe enough to share their trauma memories/stories, they can message (on Instagram) or mail write-ups and experiences to me. It will be posted along with the art anonymously. If people are not comfortable in sharing the stories with me, they can share it as post and use the hashtag #ifeelyoutober,” she explains.

The artist has also started a podcast for this series on Spotify. Sharing about Day 1 (October 1) #ifeelyoutober post, she explains. “The title for Day 1 was The Tatoo. It is a story about a person who has a tattoo of his lover’s name and how traumatic this tattoo had been for him after her moving on. This has a chaotic background represented by fragments of diagonal and vertical lines to create it. People in that particular state feel illusioned and foggy, hence this particular frame is represented in that manner. Each sketch will differ according to its emotions.”

Three artists — Srishti P, Prathyaksha Krishna Prasad and Aafreen Fathima have come up with an interesting prompt list for Inktober that is inspired by the city. “There are some controversies regarding the prompt list put out by official organisers of Inktober. So, we have come up with a prompt list that is inspired by Chennai. There has never been any city-based prompt list so far. We have created a list that is a mix of emotions, memories and elements related to Chennai. Usually, what happens in the official Inktober challenge is artists/participants get confused as to what to draw. Sometimes, they might not be able to connect with the prompt list,” says Srishti.

She assures that for #MadrasInktober, participants need not do any detailing. “They can do simple sketches or paintings. It is all about how a person interprets the prompt idea. For eg, fish is one of the themes in #MadrasInktober prompt list. You can either draw a fisherwoman or draw a boat in Kasimedu or just draw a picture of the fish. If people wanted to know more about this, they can follow us on social media — @anchoredhues_ , @ninetyeight._ and @ projectekarikthin,” she adds.