In 1976, American writer Marge Piercy published Woman on the Edge of Time, a novel that centred around Connie Ramos, a Mexican-American woman locked away in a psychiatric ward against her will. Subjected to invasive medical experiments and stripped of control over her own physical self, Connie’s distress and anger were labeled as pathology by an institution that refused to acknowledge how poverty and structural inequality shaped her life. Yet within that state of confinement, Connie makes mental contact with a figure from the future, catching glimpses of an egalitarian society built on collective labour, shared land, and a categorical rejection of patriarchal control. Piercy set up a conversation between the immediate physical violence of control and the imaginative freedom required to build something better.
That tension forms the spine of 'Women on the Edge of Time', a group exhibition curated by Linsey Young at Vadehra Art Gallery’s D-53 Defence Colony space in New Delhi. Gathering work from nine South Asian artists — Anju Dodiya, Arpita Singh, Ashfika Rahman, Gurminder Sikand, Jai Chuhan, Jasleen Kaur, Leela Mukherjee, Mumtaz Karimjee, and Sheba Chhachhi — the show spans multiple generations, geographies, and media. It brings together five practitioners who built their careers within India and four who operate from the United Kingdom, creating a dialogue that stretches across borders and historical moments.
