Space, Identity and Representation
This is the official blog of Colombo Institute’s conference, 'Space, Identity and Representation: Reading Culture in Context' scheduled to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka between 15 - 19 March 2011. The blog will provide details of the coference, including its rationale, expected outcomes, notes on participants, abstracts and followup activities.
Conference Rationale
Conference Rationale
Colombo Institute has been working on making this conference a possibility over the last two years as part of its ‘Connecting South Asia Project.’ Its co-partner, Theertha International Artists’ Collective will organize and curate an exhibition on South Asian Art in Colombo to coincide with the conference, which will broadly reflect the conference theme where selected artists from South Asia Network for the Arts will be invited to participate. The exhibition will open with the start of the conference and will continue for one month.
The conference is the main event of our effort. We have visualised it as a regional conference that will focus on the different and complex ways in which culture works in contemporary South Asia. The three day conference is divided into six sessions, and each session will direct the conference under the following themes: Who are we: Elasticity of identity /Signs, imaginaries and visualscapes: Art, politics and interrogations/Everything that surrounds: Places, spaces and geographies/Home away from home: Migration and Diasporas/Art of the everyday: Popular arts, taste(s) and anxieties.
Brief sketches on each of these themes is available in the page 'Conferece Themes.'
As part of Colombo Institute’s overall project, edited versions of the papers presented will be published in the South Asia Journal for Culture and Sinhala and Tamil translations of selected essays in Patitha and Panuwal, the local language journals published by Colombo Institute.
Colombo Institute has been working on making this conference a possibility over the last two years as part of its ‘Connecting South Asia Project.’ Its co-partner, Theertha International Artists’ Collective will organize and curate an exhibition on South Asian Art in Colombo to coincide with the conference, which will broadly reflect the conference theme where selected artists from South Asia Network for the Arts will be invited to participate. The exhibition will open with the start of the conference and will continue for one month.
The conference is the main event of our effort. We have visualised it as a regional conference that will focus on the different and complex ways in which culture works in contemporary South Asia. The three day conference is divided into six sessions, and each session will direct the conference under the following themes: Who are we: Elasticity of identity /Signs, imaginaries and visualscapes: Art, politics and interrogations/Everything that surrounds: Places, spaces and geographies/Home away from home: Migration and Diasporas/Art of the everyday: Popular arts, taste(s) and anxieties.
Brief sketches on each of these themes is available in the page 'Conferece Themes.'
As part of Colombo Institute’s overall project, edited versions of the papers presented will be published in the South Asia Journal for Culture and Sinhala and Tamil translations of selected essays in Patitha and Panuwal, the local language journals published by Colombo Institute.
