Do. 25.06.20 | 18:00 – 22:00 | online 17:45
_EN
The long-term artistic research project Archipelago Archives (2106-date), initiated by Kiran Kumar, is an emancipatory gesture of (re)imagining dances danced on an imaginary archipelago somewhere in the Indian Ocean. By studying practices of yoga, tantra, temple dance and music in South and South-East Asia, the archives offer artistic counterproposals to dominant Eurocentric understandings of being human in the world. In the wake of mounting questions of ecology, feminism and decoloniality in our present moment of modernity, the archives are an urgent investigation of both historically pre-modern and contemporary non-modern Indic cultures. Through a perspective of looking-at-from-within, this circuitously titled presentation will describe the iterative methods of investigation and publication inherent to this artistic research project through a collaged reading of excerpts from a series of essays that constitute the project’s current output.
Kiran Kumar (b.1983, Bangalore) is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and writer. His work focuses on unpacking understandings of the human body-mind through a trifold practice of dance as art, science and ritual, and on the proposals for change that these understandings hold for our contemporary world. His artistic works have ranged from performance, video, installation and exhibition, to writing and archiving. Research fellowships include the Berlin Centre for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences (2016-18), Volkswagen Foundation’s Arts & Science in Motion program (2016-19), Academy for Theatre and Digitality (2021) and Akademie Schloss Solitude (2021).
Sessions are held in English but other languages are welcome. Translation is our common duty.
Public Research is part of the program gesellschaften in the new and beautiful House of Commons, designed by Olf Kreisel at Vierte Welt.
With support of Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, Berlin.
Image: Unidentified Photograph, Rekso Pustako Mangkunegaran, Surakarta, Indonesia, undated.