The storytelling corner of the festival returns...
For the 2024 edition, we collaborate with Canadian curator and writer Raji Kaur Aujla to present six chapters illustrating a story on Reflexive Futures.
They envision an India where cultural narratives are reimagined as collective, experimental terrains for interwoven queer, fluid, and feminist identities to shape the future. This theme fosters speculative visions that challenge inherited power structures, using archival practices, embodied performance, and collective storytelling to assert inclusive Indian futures. By decentering dominant narratives and inviting marginalized voices to transform spaces, this curation explores India as a “becoming,” where each identity and experience deepens a forward-looking, pluralistic consciousness that is simultaneously local and globally resonant.
The speakers aim to guide audiences in rethinking belonging, community, and the intersections of past and potential worlds through curated spaces that reflect experimental gatherings rather than prescriptive identities. The festival, thus, becomes a sensory, collaborative medium—a site for imagining unbounded cultural possibilities that honour tradition while redefining contemporary India.
Curated by:
Raji Kaur Aujla
Schedule:
1:00 PM – Śūnya: The Aesthetic of Emptiness
Aakarsh Choubey & Ridima Khandelwal
A dialogue about Śūnya (emptiness) accompanied by a live arrangement of a tablescape.
1:30 PM – Cha da Cup
Alsisar Samosa-Wala
A short interlude.
1:45 PM – Archiving Embodied Rituals to Transmit to Future Selves
Kenneth Lobo, Kripi Malviya, Amrit Khanna, Moderated by Raji Kaur Aujla
Kitchen table conversations exploring the state of arts in India—past, present, and future.
2:30 PM – Autopsy of My Identity
Mandovi Menon
A performance of the poem Autopsy, which reflects on identity, recipes, and politics.
2:50 PM – Becoming The Beloved
Imdad Barbhuyan
A conversation and photo exhibit delving into the complexities of queer love.
3:20 PM – What Have We Lost and Can Never Revive?
Shwetal Ashvin Patel
A speculative exploration of an India that might exist but currently does not.
3:50 PM – Beyond the Body & Gender
Debashish Paul
Screening of 'Me and My Pets', a durational performance depicting an imaginary friend in a lonely, fantastic world.
