[Sarai Newsletter] DECEMBER 2006

[The Sarai Programme]

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******* SARAI  NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2006 *******
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Dear All,


This month at Sarai, we screen a new documentary: Q2P by Paromita  
Vohra, in collaboration with Breakthrough, and Sahnehaye Kharei  
[Exteriors] a feature film by Alireza Rasoulinezhad. We also feature  
a selection of one minute video works "60 seconds of Play", curated  
by Avantika Bawa.


As part of the ongoing seminar series, MSS Pandian and A Srivatsan  
come to Sarai for "Chennai: Museum, Exhibition, Backyard", with  
presentations on contemporary Chennai.


  We hope many of you will be able to make your way to Sarai. :)

Warmly,
Aarti Sethi
[Outreach]


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[[CONTENTS]]


EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS


1. Seminar @ Sarai: Chennai: Museum, Exhibition, Backyard - MSS  
Pandian and A Srivatsan

2. Screening @ Sarai: 60 seconds of Play - curated by Avantika Bawa


FILMS


3. Film @ Sarai: Q2P -  Paromita Vohra + Sahnehaye Kharei [Exteriors]  
- Alireza Rasoulinezhad

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[[EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS]]


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Seminar @ Sarai
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Chennai: Museum, Exhibition, Backyard
Presentations by MSS Pandian and A Srivatsan on the transformation of  
contemporary Chennai
2:30 P.M., Wednesday, 13 December 2006
Seminar room, Sarai-CSDS, 2: 30 P.M., followed by film screening at 5  
P.M.

The presentation will be followed by a screening of:

"Chennai: The Split City"directed by Venkatesh Chakravarthy


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Screening @ Sarai: 60 seconds of play
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60 seconds of play …..a collection of experimental one-minute works.
5:30 P.M., Friday, 15 December 2006
curated by Avantika Bawa


60 seconds of Play is presented as part of the launch for Issue #06   
- ‘PLAY’ of Drain mag- journal of contemporary art and culture  
(drainmag.com).

The works in ’60 seconds of Play’ question how playful energy may be  
a driving force in art and society. Drawing attention to trials and  
errors, mischievousness, illusions, irregularities, pretences and  
states of 'make - believe' this series of shorts will bring together  
the familiar and unfamiliar.

We present offbeat works that delve into how 'play' operates as a  
sociopolitical force in creative practices. In exploring these  
qualities, this series encouraged all contributors to visually and/or  
aurally experiment with their mediums and take a few risks by shaking  
our senses around with a little bit of naughtiness.


Artists include- Alex Pearl, Josh Mosley, Travis Hanmer, Jessica  
Gomula, Grant Stevens, Jaishri Abichandani, Suko Presseau, Matt  
Gamber, Bryan Zanisnik, Christi Heyob, Jen Schmidt, Mike Woody, Adam  
Tourek, Alex Heatherington, Ben Pranger, Matthew Kellen, Robert  
Ladislas Derr, Sarah Skapin, Elizabeth Smolares, Krista Steinke &  
Sherman Finch, Richard Oliver Wilson, Dana Sperry, Loren Schwerd,  
Natalie Bray, Ernesto Gomez, Jason Rivera, Joel Jonientz, Mary  
Magsamen, Stephan Hillerbrand, Kristi Ryba, Jon Field, Katya Moorman,  
Steve Aishman, Scott Beatty, Christi Heyob, David Burns, Allison  
McElroy and Object Orange.


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[[FILM]]


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Films @ Sarai: December  2006
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Q2PParomita VohraIndia / 2006 / English & Hindi / 54 mins
5:00 P.M., Friday, 8 December 2006
in collaboration with Breakthrough as preview screening of the  
forthcoming Third Tricontinental film festival.


About the Film Festival

Initiated in Latin America in 2002, South Africa in 2003 and India in  
2004, the TRI Continental Film Festival has become an annual platform  
for narrative, documentary, feature and short length films with  
themes that explore human rights issues in Latin America, Africa and  
Asia - the three continents that form part of the global South. In  
India, the TRI Continental Film Festival is organized by  
Breakthrough, and will be held for the third time in Delhi, Kolkata,  
Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore in January and February 2007. 2007 will  
see newer themes explored in the festival such as the alienation  
faced by call centre workers, the politics of toilets, the war on  
terror, children in conflict situations, gay and transgender people  
gazing and being gazed at through the lens, the lives of  
revolutionary women, the predicament of undocumented immigrants and  
the rights of indigenous communities. During the course of the year,  
films from the TRI Continental Film Festival are also screened at  
universities, cultural institutions, among practitioners of human  
rights, citizens’ groups as well as general audiences across India.


  Q2PPreview Screening

Who is dreaming up the global city? Q2P peers through the dream of a  
futuristic Mumbai and finds not enough public toilets. As this film  
observes who has to queue to pee, we begin to understand the  
imagination of gender that underlies the city’s shape and the  
constantly shifting boundaries between public and private space. We  
meet whimsical people with novel ideas of social change, which thrive  
with mixed results. We learn of small acts of survival that people in  
the city’s bottom half cobble together. In the Museum of Toilets, at  
a night concert, in a New Delhi ‘international toilet’, in a Bombay  
slum, we hear the silence that surrounds toilets and sense how  
similar it is to the silence that surrounds inequality. The toilet  
becomes a riddle with many answers and some of those answers are  
questions – about gender, about class, about caste and most of all  
about space, urban development and the twisted myth of the global  
metropolis. About the Director
Paromita Vohra is a filmmaker and writer. She has written, produced  
and directed Q2P (2006), Where’s Sandra (2005), Work In Progress  
(2004), Cosmopolis: Two Tales Of A City (2004), Unlimited Girls  
(2001), A Woman’s Place (1998), Annapurna: Goddess of Food (1995) and  
A Short Film About Timei (1999). Her work as a writer includes  
feature films Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters) and Khamoshi: The Musical;  
the documentaries Skin Deep, A Few Things I Know About Her and If You  
Pause: In A Museum of Craft as well as a series of short fiction  
films on communal conflict. She writes frequently for print on urban  
culture. She has worked extensively in media education with young  
people with a focus on radio and teaches scriptwriting as visiting  
faculty at the Sophia Polytechnic.

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Sahnehaye Kharei [Exteriors]
Director: Alireza RasoulinezhadIran, 63 minutes, video, 2004
4:30 P.M. Monday 18 December 2006

Sahnehaye Kharei is a film in three parts about a discouraged  
intellectual uncle who disappears from Tehran to lead a different  
life elsewhere. He leaves his apartment to his nephew and niece. The  
two discover some notes on various social and cultural topics and an  
unfinished film by their uncle. Inspired by their uncle’s ideas and  
the film footages, they decide to make a film together. The  
involvement of the two in pursuing the film becomes a pretext for the  
director of this trilogy to address contemporary social and cultural  
issues of Iran.

The film will be introduced by Ramin Jehanbegloo


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END OF NEWSLETTERThe Newsletter of the Sarai Programme,29 Rajpur  
Road, Delhi 110 054, www.sarai.netInfo: dak at sarai.netTo subscribe:  
send a blank email to newsletter-request at sarai.net with subscribe in  
the subject header.Directions to Sarai: We are ten minutes from Delhi  
University. Nearest bus stop: IP college or Exchange Stores. You can  
also take the Metro - get off at Civil Lines station.See Calendar and  
Newsletter online: http://www.sarai.net/calendar/newsletter.htm

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