Huma Mulji’s work in the show continues to engage with the issue of public space, bringing to
it also a sharp comment on the regulation of women’s bodies, romance and sexuality in an era of growing conservatism. For her photographs, Mulji strips Barbie and Ken dolls naked1 and places them on swings1 in the grass, or by the wayside in public parks. Feminists have long railed against Barbie dolls. With their pneumatic breasts and pinched waists, their bags full of dresses and accessories, these dolls suggest the overriding importance of sexual attractiveness to impressionable young girls. Mulji’s prints draw upon the double nature of these dolls, which radiate a complex of innocence – these are toys, after all – and pornographic corruption. The sight of the dolls’ intertwined legs in the long grass, or the top­-.._ angle view of them lying in the ground excites a sexual frisson, or even incites sexual violence. But the size of the dolls reminds us \ of vulnerability, and also of their inanimation, asking us to look inward at our own fetishistic response and our need to condemn the thing that excites us. Mulji’s photographs have a simple premise but evoke startlingly complex reactions. The series’ humorous title1 Yahaan Warzish K.arnaa Manaa Hai ( exercise not allowed here), cites notice boards we often see in parks, forbidding this or that activity.