The Prince Claus Fund Biennial Symposium 2023 in Sri Lanka, "Legacies of Care, Failures, Emerging Solidarities" featured seven panels, each consisting of keynote speeches and sessions led by numerous renowned local and international cultural practitioners.
Full programme
09:00 – 09:40 Registration and Coffee
9:40 – 10:00 Welcome
Welcome words by Prince Claus Fund director Marcus Desando
Sketching the day by the Symposium's artistic director Keng Sen Ong
10:00 – 10:40 Liveable Societies – Climate, Water, Air, and Us
Greening Architecture by Channa Daswatte (Sri Lanka)
Water Politics, Land Use by Marvi Mazhar (Pakistan)
Rights of Nature by Pooja Sood / Khoj (India)
10:40 – 11:20 The Human-made – Different Kinships, Memorialisation, Food Politics
Justice, Dignity, and the Need for Safer Spaces by Fadescha (Berlin/India)
Memorialisation and Historicisation by Anomaa Rajakaruna (Sri Lanka)
The Kitchens of the Displaced: Food, Memories, Agency by Tayeba Begum Lipi / Britto Art Trust (Bangladesh)
11:20 – 11:40 Coffee Break
11:40 – 12:20 Documenting and Empowering the Context
Truth to Power by Shahidul Alam (Bangladesh)
We are Present: The Power of Narratives is Ours by Radhika Hettiarachchi (Sri Lanka)
Contemporary Urgencies by Kanak Manit Dixit (Nepal)
12:20 – 13:00 Failures and Futurities
Failure of Decolonization by Avni Sethi (India),
How to Love a Tree by Hira Nabi (Pakistan)
Post-civil War: Archaeology as a Weapon by Dr. T. Sanathanan (Sri Lanka)
Learning Through the Arts, After a History of Silencing by Sharareh Bajracharya (Nepal)
14:30 – 15:10 South Asian Contemporary Experiments in Solidarity
Curating as Making Queer Kin in Karachi and Elsewheres by Aziz Sohail (Pakistan/Australia)
Counter Worldmaking in the Cold War Era and Contemporary Hyperlocality: Friendship, Intimacy, and Play by Sandev Handy (Sri Lanka)
Stitching Together the Translocal, and the Burdens of Solidarity by Sheelasha Rajbhandari (Nepal)
15:10 – 15:45 The Human Being amidst Planetary Deterioration
Exhausting the Human Being in Global Foreign Labour by Hit Man Gurung (Nepal)
Exploitative and Extractivist Cultures: Accountability before Development by Sammy Baloji (Congo)
Way of the Forest by Natasha Ginwala / Colomboscope (Sri Lanka)
15:45 – 16:05 Coffee Break
16:05 – 16:50 International Potentialities: Parallel Activations and New Alliances, for Repair
Carla Fernandez (Mexico)
Besa Luci (Kosovo)
Maya El Khalil (Lebanon)
Ibrahim Mahama (Ghana)
16:50 – 17:00 Concluding Remarks & Thank You
17:00 – 19:00 Reception at Monsoon Colombo
Highlights
