In the Catalogue text for Devi, the exhibition of Indian Goddess at the Arthur M. Sacker Gallery, Washington D.C contemplates that "there is no great goddess but when activated, every Goddess is the great Goddess," Although Spivak's intent in her essay is to evoke a liberating position for the Indian women.I argue that the transference she implies of a goddess is perhaps not a simplistic or a desirable position. Instead, I contend that the status of a goddess in India or one a living Goddess is not a position to be exalted as it presents real dangers for the woman. In considering the proposition I discuss the works of Anita Dube in Imitations of Mortality (1997) and two photographic works by Vidya Kamat Being kumari and In sacred Time from (2005) establishing a relationship between reciprocal exchanges of darshan , (the Indian Concept of seeing God in the act of worship) with the psychoanalytical concept of Kaja Silverman of "ethics of the field of vision" where the gaze of the Devi is not a gift, but a demand for an ethical response.
Arshiya Lokhandwala is an art historian, curator and founder of Lakeeren Art Gallery (1995–2003) in Mumbai India. She completed her BA and MA in Sociology in 1986 and 1991 respectively. She is the recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust award in 2001 for an MA in Creative Curating at Goldsmiths College, London. She is also a curatorial committee member of the Arts Pension Trust [1].Lokhandwala curated Rites/Rights/Rewrites: Women's Video Art, which traveled to Cornell University, Duke University, and Rutgers University from 2003–06. Having returned to Mumbai, India in 2009 Lokhandwala has reopened Lakeeren Art Gallery in a new South Mumbai location Colaba. Her opening exhibition All that's Solid Melts into Air: Indian Contemporary Art in Global Times, includes the work of Atul Dodiya, Sheela Gowda, Subodh Gupta, N. S. Harsha, Jitish Kallat, Kausik Mukhopadhyay, Justin Ponmany, Sharmila Samant, T V Santosh.
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