Who are these demonesses?

An exploration of ancestral memory, defiance and embodied knowledge carried through women and fluid beings who were demonised for their refusal to conform.  

Who are these demonesses? draws on stories of the Dakini, witch, wild woman and ogress who protected the sovereignty of their bodies and their people’s lands. For this, those in power tried to kill and reduce them to cautionary tales.  

Yet they lived on – in the elements, in a shawl passed down by a grandmother, in family and in intuition. 

In Who are these demonesses?, artist Sheelasha Rajbhandari honours intuition, suggesting that returning to our senses is a radical act of defiance in structures that thrive on exhaustion, imposter syndrome and isolation. The work tends to an ancient and living presence within us and acts as a refusal to internalise stories that were weaponised to diminish and erase. 

About the artist: 

Sheelasha is part of a growing ecosystem of artists, curators, researchers, designers, activists, archivists, and cultural workers who wear multiple hats and are initiating and sustaining practices beyond formal institutions. Alongside others, she navigates systems shaped by care, ancestral knowledge, and structural difference. Her work goes beyond making or curating; it is about holding space, resisting erasure, and imagining new ways of being in relation. She is also committed to reclaiming how stories are shared, bringing them to international platforms with dignity, complexity, and self-determination to shift conversations and redefine terms of engagement.

GET TICKETS HERE: https://www.artshouse.com.au/events/who-are-these-demonesses/