It’s safe to say that there are few markers in the struggle for women’s liberation as crucial and path-breaking as the introduction of the combined oral contraceptive pill, or as it’s more commonly called “the pill,” in 1960. The current show at Latitude 28 is all for celebrating, questioning and exploring the issues that surround this little-big tablet.

Apart from the subject matter, The Pill is also exciting for the number of young contemporary artists that it brings together including Jaishri Abichandani, Sarnath Banerjee, Ayesha Durrani, Kaif Ghaznavi, Tushar Joag, Abir Karmakar, Swati Khurana, Nandita Kumar, Tazeen Qayyum, Mithu Sen and Vito Tumbarello. The gallery space, a large, airy multi-level building in dusty Lado Sarai, is brought alive by their installations, photographs and paintings that address a number of things – the control a woman has over her own body, or the life-changing choices that oral contraceptives offer, but also its stigma of promiscuity and its side effects.

The starting point for Pakistani artist Tazeen Qayyum’s “It’s Complicated” series is Hungarian-born English writer George Mikes’ statement: “Continental people have sex lives; the English have hot-water bottles.” She plays on this idea with a series of ten colourful hot water bags, which have alternately been painted, snipped or pinned. Yet beneath their bright exterior lies the idea of menstrual pain and discomfort.

Clever in its use of imagery is Swati Khurana’s “Monthly Cycle” comprising twenty-eight embroidery hoops or frames with high heels stitched on three “weeks” and flat slippers on one.

More elaborate is Kaif; Ghaznavi’s “Maang”, a set of fifty circular photographs of a woman’s hair parting. Arranged carelessly on the wall, they look like spilled tablets from afar. The images play not only with form and content but also, at a deeper level, comment on the infinitely complex relationship that a woman has with the pill.

Ayesha Durrani’s works, which use marbling, tea wash and gouache, have the central motifs of a female mannequin’s figure and large dots – “In my Belly” and “Salvation” are particularly striking.

In contrast are Mithu Sen’s trademark watercolours in all their disquieting vibrancy, especially “Dog Baby” with its blood-red washes over a disfigured human form. The Pill also shows some other innovative creative exploits in the form of live line drawings by artist and graphic novelist Sarnath Bannerjee.

The show may not provide many answers to the issues surrounding the use of the pill, but it does come close to exposing its historical and sociological weight in a fun yet poignant manner.