Wednesday, February 24, 2016
The Bangalore Queer Film Festival - from Thursday 25th to Sunday 28th - opening Thursday 25th @ 18.00
Inauguration + Lec-Dem + Live Art + Photo Exhibition @ Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan
Organisers: Swabhava Trust, Good as you (GAY), We're here and Queer (WHaQ), Pirat Dykes
Body + Vulnerability: Exhibition/Performances
Artist Suresh Kumar has curated a relay of performance works by 11 city artists - Arpitha Gangadhariah, Dimple Shah, Jeetin Ranger, Katarina Rasic, Prasad KT, Ranjana Nagaraj, Raghu Wodeyar, Smitha Cariappa, Sridhar Gangoli, Suresh Kumar and Yash Bhandari -- around the theme of "Body + Vulnerability". These artists will create five-minute live action works that will forefront their "take-away" from this theme.
Also showcased at the Bhavan are works by noted photographers: Vietnamese photographer Maika Elan's The Pink Choice, which the won First Prize: Contemporary Issues at World Press Photo 2013 and First Prize: Documentary Story at Pride Photo Award 2013. There are also illustrations from Pakistani artist Ayqa Khan, a selection of BDSM works from The Kinky Project and selection from photographer Akshay Mahajan's latest "studio-in-the-street" intervention with "the real Begums of Bhopal".
Since its inception, BQFF has brought together films on themes related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and other communities that fall outside the heterosexual norm. The festival caters to a large Bangalore public interested in exciting and boundary-pushing films from several countries across the world. The festival is committed to the circulation of good queer cinema, including films from non-Western locations, films by independent filmmakers, popular cinema that experiments with LGBT themes, and experimental films that push aesthetic limits.
SPECIAL Screenings organised by the Alliance Française de Bangalore include the multiple award-winning Laurence Anyways directed by Xavier Dolan and La Belle Saison directed by Catherine Corsini about the connections between feminism and lesbianism. Bande de filles or Girlhood directed by Céline Sciamma, a moving coming of age tale, will also be shown as part of these special screenings.
The festival is not just about big budget feature films. As a space that encourages independent cinema and the adventurous efforts of animators, amateur cinematographers, documentary and experimental filmmakers, BQFF ensures that its audience gets to watch a wide range of short films, social documentaries and experiments with form, image and sound.
This year's festival has an overwhelming number of South Indian films. BQFF has always been a unique space for viewers to be bowled over by queer cinema in South Indian languages, and this year is no exception. We have two major features films, the Malayalam film Odum Raja Aadum Rani, directed by Viju Varma and the National Award-winning Kannada film Naanu Avanalla Avalu based on the life of activist Living Smile Vidya. We are also screening two South Indian documentaries, Walking the Walk made by Moses Tulasi, about the pride march in Hyderabad and That's My Boy by Akhil Satyan about Bangalore-based transman Sonu. Also from South India is Namita Avriti's wild animation film Transformers in which Sexy S and Gangster G discover their superpowers.
Also on the cards this year is Tangerine directed by Sean S. Baker, a film that has created an incredible amount of buzz around the world. Tangerine is an experiment in film technology since it was shot fully on an I-Phone 5!
BQFF also includes efforts to support other kinds of work: queer cultural performances, photo exhibitions, art exhibitions and book launches have all been a part of the festival's history.
Readings at Alliance Francaise:
Writer, actor and activist A Revathi, poet and activist Chandini Gagana, poet and activist Charu Priyan, academic, poet & writer Ashley Tellis will read from their latest works.
Performances at Alliance Francaise
Closing out the performances of the Festival will be an evening of dances ranging from the classical by Masoom Parmar, the moves of the Classy Katzzz, the Tango queered, the Pink Divas with their fanfare and message, and we'll also present The Sexy Lexi Show among other fun dance performances.
Worldly Affiliations: Artistic Practice, National Identity and Modernism in India | Sonal Khullar - Sunday 28th @ 18.30
About the Talk
Sonal Khullar will discuss her newly published book, Worldly Affiliations: Artistic Practice, National Identity and Modernism in India, 1930-1990, in the context of new global histories of modernism and recent exhibitions of contemporary art from India. Drawing on Edward Said’s notion of affiliation as a critical and cultural imperative against empire and nation-state, this book traces the emergence of a national art world in twentieth-century India and emphasizes its cosmopolitan ambitions and orientations. It focuses on four major Indian artists –
Sonal Khullar will discuss her newly published book, Worldly Affiliations: Artistic Practice, National Identity and Modernism in India, 1930-1990, in the context of new global histories of modernism and recent exhibitions of contemporary art from India. Drawing on Edward Said’s notion of affiliation as a critical and cultural imperative against empire and nation-state, this book traces the emergence of a national art world in twentieth-century India and emphasizes its cosmopolitan ambitions and orientations. It focuses on four major Indian artists –
Amrita Sher-Gil, Maqbool Fida Husain, K. G. Subramanyan, and Bhupen Khakhar
— whose careers reveal a distinctive trajectory of modernism in the visual arts in India that is foundational to the representational practices of the present. Khullar analyzes the shifting terms of Indian artists’ engagement with the West – an urgent yet fraught project in the wake of British colonialism — and to a lesser extent with African and Latin American cultural movements like Négritude and Mexican muralism. Such cross-cultural negotiations were by no means exclusive to the artists of this study, but were the structural conditions for modernism in twentieth-century India.About the Speaker
Sonal Khullar is Associate Professor of South Asian Art at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is the author of Worldly Affiliations: Artistic Practice, National Identity and Modernism in India, 1930-1990 (University of California Press, 2015). Her research interests include global histories of modern and contemporary art, feminist theory, and postcolonial studies.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Thoda Dhyaan Se | Malika Taneja - Wednesday 24th @ 18.30
Caution is central to a woman's experience of life in India. It is prescribed, imbibed and practiced with rigour, so that women can be 'safe'. "Thoda Dhyaan Se", a powerful solo performance by Mallika Taneja that premiered in India recently at the International Theatre Festival of Kerala is part of our focus on gender and LGBT issues this month.Thoda Dhyaan Se will set the tone for The Bengaluru Queer Film Festival scheduled from February 25 to 27, 2016. In a similar vein there will be a presentation by Blank Noise on its campaign: I Never Ask For It, also on the 24th.
Entry with pass only for adults above 18 years.
Limited passes available at the Bhavan during office hours. Two passes per head only.
For further details, please call the Bhavan: 2520 5305/6/7/8 or visit our website: goethe.de/bangalore; facebook.com/goetheinstitut.
Thoda Dhyaan Se (Be Careful) is a satirical piece that challenges the much-touted notion of safety. Rooted in a widespread anger against the everyday violence against women, the performance confronts the unfortunate conflation between the manner in which women dress and the atrocities committed against them - as if the former begets the latter. Stripping down a culture hiding behind its ignorant, prudish mores, Mallika Taneja exposes the contradictions at the heart of India's stunted social progress.
At Home at the Zoo - Saturday 27th & Sunday 28 @ 19.30
Edward Albee wrote The Zoo Story in 1958. Since then, it has been performed throughout the world. Albee had always felt that Peter’s character was not etched enough and so, forty years later in 2004 he added an Act One in which we see Peter and his wife, Anne. So was born At Home At The Zoo.
Monday, February 15, 2016
Friday, February 12, 2016
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Conversation with Suresh Jayaram - Wednesday 10th @ 19.00
Suresh Jayaram shares from the book, 1 Shanthi Road, to follow the journey of Bangalore's artist-led gallery and studio space!
ABOUT 1 SHANTHI ROAD
1 Shanthi Road studio/gallery is a unique space that has been engaging with contemporary art, in Bangalore, since 2002. The gallery also organises residencies, and collaborations with local, and visiting artists from all parts of the world. Through its work that socially engages with art and the city, 1 Shanthi Road has cultivated a community for contemporary arts.
This book is a chronicle of the space and its art practice and includes essays by Pushpamala N, Ayisha Abraham and others.
For more on 1 Shanthi Road: www.1shanthiroad.com
ABOUT SURESH
Suresh Jayaram is an artist, art historian, arts administrator, and curator from Bangalore. He is the Founder, Director of Visual Art Collective/1 Shanthi Road Studio an international artist's residency, and alternative art space in Bangalore, India. He is currently involved in art practise, urban mapping, archiving, curation, and arts education. His keen interest in environmental and urban developmental issues influences his work. He taught Art History at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat, the College of Fine Arts in Bangalore, and later went on to become the Dean from 2005-2007.
As a curator Suresh curated the Colombo Art Biennale 2012, and the Sethusamudram Project, a collaborative art project by Theertha International Artists Collective, Colombo, Sri Lanka, and 1 Shanthi Road Studio/Gallery, in 2010. In the field of arts management, he was an Art Think South Asia Fellow at Sculpturen Park, Berlin 2010-07; he coordinated the South Asian residency for KHOJ, in 2008; and was a member of the working committee of KHOJ International Artists Association, to organise an international artists' Residency in Mysore and Bangalore, in 2002. He received the British Council Charles Wallace India Trust award in 2004, to work as an artist at the Gasworks Studios, London.
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