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On the night of 8 November, a welcome occasion was held on the cultural centre Romantso (Athens) as part of the inventive programme of Protected Havens Convention 2023. The occasion featured a creative intervention titled Darkish & Scrumptious by puppeteer Varun Narain and his associate Shaad Qureshi, who’re in exile from India because of the oppression they face for addressing queer matters of their reveals. Impressed by the work of scientists J.C. Bose and Monica Gagliano, the efficiency combines puppetry and appearing to convey fantastical creations to life, exploring themes of queer identification and sustainability. The puppets are intricately designed to mirror the botanically correct type of actual vegetation. This that includes occasion was in collaboration with Safemuse and Nordic Black Theatre.
About Members
Varun Narain is a Queer puppeteer and reside efficiency director who believes in blurring bodily, psychological and organic boundaries. His work (since) 1994 has questioned and hilighted myths round gender and sexuality. After being the primary Indian artist in residence in Switzerland (Facilitated by Prohelvetia, 2007) and instructing Puppetry and up to date communication at The Mass Communication Analysis Centre at Jamia Millia College (for over 10 years) and likewise the Guru Gobind Indraprastha College in New Delhi. Varun’s current scenario as a queer artist resonates in his work the place he appears at intelligence and survival methods on the planet of vegetation, fungi and lichens. Varun has additionally skilled in Indian classical music (Sitar) below the tutelage of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. He presently makes use of his information to compose underlays for his performances. For the previous 5 years he has been scripting, fabricating and executing performances with gender-fluid and inter-species characters impressed by discoveries in life science and the wooden huge net.
Shaad Qureshi is an artist and a performer who likes to precise himself in numerous inventive methods. He believes in equality and integrity for everybody. He explores life utilizing nonetheless and video images in city and rural situations. He additionally writes poetry by processing situational actuality and expressing it as couplets or verse in Hindi, Urdu and English. He’s skilled in appearing methods from ‘Barry John appearing studio’. He assisted and documented ‘Fragile Kinships’ an Artwork Soiree at The Embassy of Switzerland, New Delhi, 2019. He has labored on the Kingdom of Goals as an actor on stage within the Musical Extravaganza, Jhumroo, based mostly on the life and music of the Indian artist Kishore Kumar. Throughout the covid pandemic together with puppeteer Varun Narain he acted within the on-line efficiency, I’m a Plant, for Identical Boat Theatre Collective, in addition to within the multidisciplinary collaboration Tales of Hans Christian Andersen. He assisted Varun at Spielart Theater Pageant 2021 in Munich, Germany and documented his efficiency The Spice Chronicles. He and Varun have created and carried out a present entitled Darkish & Scrumptious.
About Freedom Talks
The Freedom Talks sequence is concentrated on points relating to threats in direction of inventive freedom, free press and intangible heritage. It’s intently related to the annual world Protected Havens convention. Visitors within the Freedom Talks sequence are extremely educated and prolific actors within the world Arts Rights Justice sector – preventing for inventive freedom. The Freedom Talks purpose to share house and broaden the narrative of who can take centre stage by lending the model to totally different organisations throughout the sector. The talks are introduced in – or translated to – English. The talks had been funded by the Swedish Institute (SI) in 2021 and 2022. The recordings may be watched by way of our web site and our associate HowlRound, the place earlier occasions are additionally archived.
The 2023 convention was organised by the Protected Havens Freedom Talks (SH|FT) in partnership with the UNESCO-Aschberg programme and supported by the Swedish Arts Council/SIDA Inventive Freedom Programme, and Landscapes of Hope by way of Motion for Hope.
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