Who are we?: Elasticity of identity
On the basis of gender as well as other issues such as caste, religion, locality, sexual orientation, class etc identity is a crucial factor and marker of cultural identity in South Asia. However, identity or the fact that an individual might possess multiple identities at a given time means that identities are products of negotiations and constant changes rather than static entities. This panel will explore the processes involved in the creation of these political as well as socio‐cultural identities and would further critically explore the notion of a ‘South Asian identity’ itself opening up questions such as “what is south Asian cultural production?” The panel will explore possibilities to think reflexively about these questions of identity and to ascertain how artistic production tackles these issues.
Signs, imaginaries and cultural‐scapes: Art, politics and interrogations
Art is no longer a simple matter of painting, sculpture and related practices reduced to the consumption of visual pleasure. Art in the South Asia context as well as beyond is a political process rooted in the specificities of time, space and history. What becomes art and what is not as well as what is visually articulated and what remains silent is directly linked to historical and cultural moments as well as the politics of a specific space and the domains to which it is open. In highly explosive backdrops of South Asia, the role of artists and art have found new definitions. The Internationalization of art that happened with increased art exchanges across geographical boundaries, heightened information access and democratizing art making through reliance on technology, art market booms and other factors of play has found new dimensions and discussions in art politics within South Asia. These changes have also collapsed conventional boundaries within art allowing fusions between traditional art, popular art and ‘high art’. The academic terrain in South Asia has failed to seriously engage in debates on contemporary landscapes of art in South Asia and the anxieties and issues new changes tend to produce. This panel will explore the dynamics and politics of visual arts practices in the region.
The production of space: place, geography and artistic production
When a space becomes a place, that process gives the emergent place a specific identity and history that space might not have had. However the difference between space and place is not merely an issue of history and identity. Along with geographies, the meanings created by these concepts refer to numerous processes of politics of both inclusion and exclusion linked to politics of power. Understood in this sense discourses of space, place and geographies are discourses of power devoid of innocence. This panel will attempt to unravel the meanings embedded in places, spaces and geographies through an interrogation of the discourses of urban space, architecture and spatial politics in general.
Home away from home: Migration and Diasporas
Due to political instability as well as due to a process of ‘looking for greener pastures’ migration within countries of South Asia and from South Asia to other parts of Asia as well as Europe, North America and the Middle east has been ongoing since before independence from colonial rule. In many part of the world where South Asians have settled diasporas have been established with links to the ‘mother’ countries as well as dynamics of their own. In these diasporic spaces notions of home as well as ideals of nationalism and ethnocultural pride have been reproduced over time. Much has been written about Indian diasporas in different parts of the world and to a lesser extent about the Sri Lankan Tamil diasporas in Canada and Europe. This panel will attempt to explore some of the dynamics of migration and diasporic spaces involving South Asians focusing on issues that have been hitherto under‐addressed.
