Conceptualised by Premjish Achari

Concept Note: The two-day symposium features panel discussions and roundtables to assess the diverse forms of critical writing practices across India in art, fiction, and translation, and explore possibilities to co-learn from each other to strengthen criticality in a post-critical world. The symposium engages with the recent shifts in critical writing practices, foreground newer concerns and elaborates strategies in search of newer forms, platforms and communities. The symposium is designed to find answers collectively to many crucial questions at a critical juncture in the wake of a hostile cultural climate such as How do we write critically in/for a changing nation? What are the newer forms of writing and strategies of dissemination used by writers and practitioners? What is the relevance of criticism in this changing cultural and political landscape? How do we create an intersectional approach towards criticality? Do we maintain the correct distance or work with the institutions to engender a praxis of institutional critique?

DAY 1 [Sunday, Sep 4]

Opening Remarks by Bhavna Kakar, Editor-in-Chief, TAKE on Art

In Search of the Vernacular: Dismantling the National-Regional Binary
>> 11:00 am to 12:00 pm

The exponential rise in the number of writings and the ease of accessibility that marks the vernacular literature has been an exceptional case study to understand how writers from the non-metropolitan locations are using newer forms of writing, experiments in typography and illustration, and social media to foreground a new path. Whereas, these writings are also not fore grounded enough due to the lack of translations and the dominance of English as a legitimate language of discursive activity. This panel brings together participants who are located in the intersection of poetry, illustration, performance and art writing to discuss this predicament of the vernacular literature.

Moderator:
Prof Y. S. Alone

Panellists:
Sudheesh Kottembram
Ashok Vajpeyi
Noopur Desai
Kamayani Sharma

New Ways of Writing Critically on Literature, Cinema, Theatre and Dance
>> 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm

The panel will discuss the recent debates and shifts in the field of critical writing on Literature, Cinema, Theatre and Dance. While making a case for an interdisciplinary understanding of these different forms, the speakers also emphasise on the importance of specific tools that are required to analyse these practices individually.

Moderator:
Dr Alka Pande

Panellists:
Dr Meghna Bharadwaj (Dance)
Prof Rashmi Doraiswamy (Cinema)
Amitesh Grover (Theatre & Performance)
Anuj Malhotra

Roundtable: Practitioners and Criticism
>> 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm

Is there a fetishism of criticism? Is a critic an authoritarian judgmental figure? How is criticism important for the practitioners? Do practitioners value critical writing? In this roundtable practitioners and artists engage in an open discussion to understand the crisis of criticism in art, literature, cinema, and performance.

Moderator:
Premjish Achari

Discussants:
Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar
Vasudha Thozhur
Girish Shahane
Jeebesh Bagchi
Ravi Agarwal

DAY 2 [Monday, Sep 5]

Writing/Reading for/in a Changing Nation
>> 11:00 am to 12:00 pm

This panel will engage with writers and practitioners who are not only finding new ways to disseminate writing (social media, independent publishing, podcasts, etc.) but also foregrounding critical observations in a changing political and cultural landscape. In a context when writers, academics and artists are threatened for their opinions, what are the new ways in which practitioners are negotiating issues of censorship and self-censorship, how are they finding new audiences, what strategies are they adopting to build resilient communities and new avenues for reading?

Moderator:
Najrin Islam

Panellists:
Mridula Koshy
Ankush Gupta
Anurag Minus Verma
Nihaal Faizal (Reliable Copy)

Has Art Writing/Criticism Become Boring? New Strategies of Making Art Writing/Criticism Readable
>> 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm

Art writing/criticism has been now usually associated as a drab form of writing filled with illegible jargons and dreary descriptions of the artworks catering to a miniscule readership. Largely as a form of writing it has stopped to move beyond these conventions and facilitate radical experiments in this form of writing reflecting the changes that are happening globally in the practices of writing. Using specific examples this panel not only reflects not only on the existing crisis with the form of art writing but also proposes newer forms, strategies, and vision for what art writing can become.

Moderator:
Premjish Achari

Panellists:
Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi
Abhay Bhalla
Arushi Vats
Dr Srajana Kaikini

Roundtable: Art History and Storytelling
>> 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm

How have books and their design responded to politics of language, feminism, movements to decolonise knowledge and power? As long as the pages are bound by the spine, is the book’s structure still reminiscent of privileged centers of knowledge production? Is the book’s materiality its hook and its sinker?

Moderator:
Dilpreet Bhullar

Discussants:
Prof Parul Dave-Mukherji
Dr Tasneem Zakaria Mehta
Yashodhara Dalmia
Divakar Venkataraman
Jigisha Bhattacharya

Photos