A trip to India's first community-owned feminist library in Mumbai

Artist-activist Aqui Thami shares its journey

As a student of literature, I used to find it strange that most of the texts we studied were written by white, upper class men who together formed the literary “canon” that feminists have been trying to subvert for decades. For those of us interested in reading more women, there was a separate (not to mention optional) subject called “women’s studies”.  So it was with a mix of curiosity and excitement that I attended the opening of Sister Library, India’s first feminist library, this month in Mumbai. 

Its creator, artist-activist Aqui Thami, is no stranger to firsts. Born in Darjeeling and currently residing in Mumbai, Thami is a firstgeneration indigenous artist who is also the first from her tribe to pursue a PhD.

Sister Library is a one-of-a-kind project, an invigorating and empowering space for readers to explore and celebrate the literary contribution of women writers and artists across the world. Thami believes that reading women offers a fresh perspective on this fragmented world. “We are in dire need of empathy. We need to reflect and understand that women’s works allow the reader to experience a different worldview, a different possibility,” she says.

Thami started Sister Library, winner of the Inlaks Fine Art Award in 2017, as a travelling library over a year ago that would make pit stops across the country, including a much-lauded exhibition at the 2018 Kochi-Muziris Biennale. During those travels, Thami interacted with many readers and manifested the vision of a permanent home for the library in Mumbai. She says, “The idea was cemented when I met so many women like me who cried, laughed and danced in the space, who came every single day, who helped install and uninstall the setup and who carried boxes of books with me. Women who shared that this was their altar.” 

The space may be modest but the feeling of sisterhood is powerful, as I observed during its low-key launch in Mumbai’s Bandra last week. Men, women and young girls explored the walls stacked with bookshelves, zines and hand-painted feminist art and posters, with fistfuls of pink bougainvillea across the floors providing a splash of colour. The bright neon pink theme has been a staple in Thami’s artworks for many years. It is an embracing of the feminine, while at the same time rebelling against its stereotypical constraints.

Browsing through the shelves of Sister Library, the future looks female and inclusive. Thami’s collection of feminist literature has been ever-expanding, and comfortably houses essential readings by Western icons like Gloria Steinem and Simone de Beauvoir, Asian figures like Amy Tan and Qurratulain Hyder, black idols like Alice Walker and Maya Angelou, as well as many diverse and lesser-known works by women writers across the spectrum. 

The collection ranges from seminal works on women’s liberation movements to an adorable children’s picture book called Feminist Felines, to an illustrated novel on bipolar disorder. Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend, Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, Zadie Smith’s Swing Time, Telugu writer Volga’s The Liberation of Sita, bell hooks’ All About Love and Granta’s The F Word are among many of the acclaimed works in the collection.

These, and hundreds of other radical works by women, populate the shelves of Sister Library. Thami shares her own process of curating the library: “The categories are fiction (green), nonfiction (gold), art (orange), and graphic novels (yellow) marked by different stickers. Under these, there are sections for different subjects.”

Aqui Thami, Creator & artist-activist, Sister Library

When the collection is so personal, every book could be considered a recommendation. Thami’s own favourites include the works of Cuban-American performance artist Ana Mendieta, Nepali writer Parijat and Maori professor of indigenous education Linda Tuhiwai Smith, among many

Sister Library

others.

Thami, who has earlier co-founded community spaces like the zine-making collective Bombay Underground as well as the Dharavi Art Room working with the children of Mumbai’s largest slum, envisions Sister Library as a hope to “build a community of many people who celebrate women every day as valiant thinkers, doers and changemakers”. 

She is grateful for the contributions that have helped Sister Library flourish from a personal art project to a thriving space for the exchange of progressive ideas. Of a total campaign goal of Rs 80 lakh, she has managed to raise nearly Rs 6 lakh via crowdfunding. While this amount has covered the rent for the library space for an entire year, Thami is keeping the campaign alive for a little longer to realise her dream of turning it into a permanent home.

The library, which has 3,000-plus books and works on a membership model, is open to visitors from 1 pm to 6 pm from Wednesday to Sunday. Thami continues to urge the reading community to mobilise funds, books and volunteers to run the space. Among the books on her wishlist are Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History by Bridget Quinn, Art and Feminism by Helena Reckitt and Peggy Phelan and Where is Ana Mendieta: Identity, Performativity, and Exile by Jane Blocker. Monetary contributions will go towards keeping the library independent and growing. 

You can contribute to the Sister Library on Milaap.org/fundraisers/sisterlibrary and follow it on Instagram via @sister.library