Kolkata / Guwahati Forum: The Art of Living Together
Curated by Ariane Beyn, Nilanjan Bhattacharya, and Jörn Schafaff
Beyond Migration is a transnational exchange and exhibition project that explores the multiple effects of migration in different regions of the world: How does human mobility affect prevailing notions of cultural identity? In what ways does migration contribute to changing cultural habits, preferences, and practices? What forms of living together emerge? In urban areas with varying degrees of cultural and social heterogeneity—Kolkata/Guwahati, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Bogotá/Caracas—artists, activists, and researchers explore what it means to understand migration a dynamic process that affects all areas of society.
The
Kolkata / Guwahati Forum is the first edition of a series of events that will discuss such questions in the regions focused on in the project. Following the idea of learning from each other, the contributors come together to discuss the current state of migrant society in Kolkata and Guwahati, complemented by perspectives from Germany and Europe. Under the rubric “The Art of Living Together,” facts, ideas, personal accounts, and artistic perspectives will provide insights into the diversity of cultural and social change enacted by migration: in the reconfiguration of language, habits, and relationships; in media representations and in the materiality of urban landscapes; in national narratives, collective memory, and historiography; in opportunities for participation and the diversity of institutions; and in practices of social cohesion.
FOCUS ON KOLKATA / GUWAHATI
Kolkata has had a longstanding multicultural tradition since its early days of urban development in the eighteenth century. Over the course of its history, Kolkata has learned to acknowledge the differences and the diversities in people, cultures, languages, and thought processes and has, to some degree, masterminded the craft of living together. Guwahati, in the state of Assam, which borders Bangladesh, is currently a focus of attention and controversy because of its strategic location, the dynamics of human movement there, and the divisive political maneuvering taking place—relating to questions of identity, nationality, and citizenship. The interconnectivity and complexities related to demography, language, religion, and the diverse cultural practices in these two eastern Indian regions make them extremely potent in terms of reading, tracking, discussing, and gathering narratives, facts, and figures about the effects of migration and how they manifest in the fabric of everyday life.
The Kolkata / Guwahati Forum: The Art of Living is presented by Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata in collaboration with Chander Haat.
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