Water Signs: Writing Towards Ecological Harmony
VIEW EVENT DETAILSMonday, 22nd January, 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Historically, civilizations and ecosystems grow around water bodies – and in South Asia, as borders defined nations, these water bodies often flowed within and around these distinct ecosystems, shaping them and in turn being shaped by them. In his edited volume ‘The Great Padma: The Epic River that Made the Bengal Delta,’ Bangladeshi architect, historian and author Kazi Ashraf explores how the Indian river, Ganga, enters Bangladesh as the Padma and creates its rich own habitat and coastal ecosystem. This life-sustaining river – described poetically by Rabindranath Tagore as a “living personality” – can also turn on human life when faced with threats to its safety, almost taking on a form of its own. Ashraf’s volume brings together essays by scholars, anthropologists and historians to explore this very life-sustaining, life-destroying quality of the river, reflecting on its centrality to human existence.
Journalist and photographer Arati Kumar-Rao takes a similar essay-based approach to her book, ‘Marginlands: Indian Landscapes on the Brink,’ using photographs, reportage and poetry to explore seven different landscapes, from arid to coastal, in India and probing the extent to which human greed and industry has harmed and altered the natural world, its communities, and its species. Combining the richness of fiction with the rigour of reportage, Kumar-Rao makes a compelling case for why, at this moment in our climate crisis, we cannot look away.
In a conversation at the David Sassoon Library Gardens, developed in collaboration with the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Kazi Ashraf and Arati Kumar-Rao will dig deeper into their works; how they were researched and created; and the fundamental truths about the natural world that they explore. The session will focus on the questions: what is the interplay between human life and our natural world? What are the current threats to the world around us, and its richness and diversity? And finally, how can non-fiction and fiction document and bear witness to this interplay?
Entry is free, and no prior registration is required. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.
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This conversation is in collaboration with the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, January 20-28, 2024. The Kala Ghoda festival is a nine-day extravaganza of literature, theatre, cinema, music and all things art, held in South Mumbai’s beloved cultural district, across theatres, museums, libraries and art galleries. The Literature sessions are held in the newly-restored historic David Sassoon Library Gardens. The Literature programming has a unique focus on cross-disciplinary and interactive sessions, where a literary text or author may form linkages with other visual, performance, or culinary art forms. This year, the Festival's theme is 'Udaan,' and within that, the Literature vertical has embraced the possibilities of 'Still I Rise', inspired by Maya Angelou's poem of the same title.
Speakers
Kazi Khaleed Ashraf is an architect, urbanist and architectural historian, and currently directs the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlement in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Before establishing the Bengal Institute, Ashraf taught in the US for over 25 years at several institutions, including the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the University of Pennsylvania, and Temple University. Ashraf is the editor and writer of the book "The Great Padma: The Epic River that made the Bengal Delta." Writing from the intersection of architecture, urbanism and landscape theories, Ashraf has published widely. His various writings on the architecture of Bangladesh and India have provided a theoretical ground for understanding both the historical and contemporary forms of architecture. At the same time, his written and design work on Dhaka advances that city as a "theorem" for living in a deltaic geography. His publications include: "The Hermit’s Hut: Architecture and Asceticism in India" (2013); "Designing Dhaka: A Manifesto for a Better City" (2012); "An Architect in Bangladesh: Conversations with Muzharul Islam" (2014); special issue of Architectural Design “Made in India” (2007); "Pundranagar to Sherebanglanagar: Architecture in Bangladesh" (with Saif Ul Haque and Raziul Ahsan, 1997), and "Louis Kahn’s National Capital in Bangladesh" (1994). His articles and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The Architectural Review, Architectural Design, Journal of Architectural Education, RES, MIMAR and The Economic and Political Weekly. The exhibition, "An Architecture of Independence: The Making of Modern South Asia" on four modernist architects from South Asia, was curated by Ashraf and James Belluardo for The Architectural League of New York in 1997.
Arati Kumar-Rao is a National Geographic Explorer, independent photographer, writer, and artist working in the Indian subcontinent to connect the dots between environmental destruction and the loss of livelihoods and biodiversity in the face of a deepening climate crisis. Arati was named in BBC’s list of 100 Influential & Inspiring Women of 2023 and her first book is Marginlands: India's Landscapes on the Brink, was published by PanMacmillan (Picador) in June 2023.
Event Details
David Sassoon Library Gardens, Mumbai