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Closing Reception + Music Performances – June 28, 2025, 4 – 6pm secure.qgiv.com/for/exhibitions/event/pagleesclosing/
The Paglees is a feminist collective of artists of South Asian origin living across the United States. Paglee or pagli means crazy woman in several South Asian languages. The Paglees are Shelly Bahl, NYC; Monica Jahan Bose, Washington, DC; Fawzia Khan, Hopkins, MN; Renluka Maharaj, Boulder, CO; Indrani Nayar-Gall, Charlotte, NC; Nirmal Raja, Milwaukee, WI; Pallavi Sharma, San Ramon, CA.
The Paglees are rewriting the narrative for women of color through art that confronts generations of patriarchy, colonialism, and systemic oppression. This feminist collective of artists of South Asian heritage brings fire, beauty, and truth to the forefront in “The Paglees: Between Reason and Madness,” an exhibition that reclaims the term “crazy woman” and transforms it into a symbol of resistance, wisdom, and decolonial power.
The Paglees investigate – with fierceness, beauty, and wit – the impact on women of generations of patriarchy, religion, white supremacy, colonialism, violence, capitalism, and environmental plunder.
The title of the exhibition derives from Rosa Parks’ words: “There is just so much hurt, disappointment and oppression one can take. The bubble of life grows larger. The line between reason and madness grows thinner.”
Featuring mixed media works on paper, fabric, and canvas, sculpture, performance, photography, installation, and moving image, the exhibition questions and reframes the labeling of non-conforming women as crazy and the marginalization of immigrant women of color. This collective exhibition presents new decolonial narratives that center the reason and wisdom of brown women of the Global South and diaspora and provide pathways to a creative feminist future. The Paglees believe in working in collaboration with other marginalized communities to build bridges and demand social, environmental, and legal justice for all.
The exhibit was previously exhibited at the South Asia Institute in Chicago, IL and will run through June 28, 2025 at the McColl Center in Charlotte.
For more details, visit mccoll.org.
