Tomasz Gudzowaty i Judit Berekai, Power Punch Girls

Tomasz Gudzowaty i Judit Berekai

Power Punch Girls

I gallery floor, 17.02.07 - 01.06.07

The exhibition consists of photographs taken during the trip to India in December ‘06.

The beginnings of women’s boxing date back to the fights arranged in London back in the 1720s. The first boxing matches resembled bloodbaths rather than regular fights. Apart from throwing jabs, boxers were allowed to kick and grapple the opponent as no rules governing the sport were set out until 1880. However, still today the discipline is seen to be a typically masculine sport and form of entertainment. National federations permitted women to take up boxing quite late in the history of the sport as only in the 1990s.

 The Lal Bahadur sports centre in Kollam attracts girl boxers from regions far beyond Kerala, in fact from the entire South of India. The girls train with Chandra Lal, one of the best boxing coaches in the country. Many of ‘Chandra’s Angels’ successfully made it onto the Indian National Women’s Boxing team. One such boxer, K.C. Lekha won the gold medal in the 75 kg weight class at the 4th World Women’s Boxing Championships held in New Delhi in November '06. Aswathy Prabha (57 kg), C.V. Aswathy Mol (70 kg) and V.K. Swapna (56 kg) are just three of the girls who climbed the podium at various international tournaments.

 Although Poland too boasts considerable success in this field, women’s boxing is still much underrated. It is far too often considered a form of entertainment with a tinge of cheap eroticism attached to it, yet Indian contestants are graceful and elegant. The hard work and effort put in the training are immense but surprisingly only few are seriously thinking of becoming professional contestants. For many of the girls success in the ring will be a passport to landing a good job in the police forces or a security guard agency, which is still a privilege few women are accorded in the strongly patriarchal society.