A reading room initiative comes alive with Colomboscope
View(s):
Urban cinema: Scratches on Celluloid. Pic by Vindhya Buthpitiya
‘Reading in Tongues’, a four-part virtual programme series organised by the Ishara Art Foundation in partnership with Colomboscope is on this August. A reading room initiative, it forms part of the upcoming Colomboscope festival ‘Language is Migrant’. The festival curated by Anushka Rajendran with artistic director Natasha Ginwala brings together intergenerational cultural practices from across Sri Lanka and South Asia.
The tongue is considered a living form exposing that language is never neutral, while modelling expressions of rebellion, the mutation of inheritance and a shelter for poesis to emerge. ‘Reading in Tongues’ is envisioned as a convivial junction where estranged dialects, invented language, sonic vibrations are embraced by engaged listening and performative reading.
The programme for the rest of August is as follows:
Film screening
Scratches on Celluloid-Directed by Timothy P.A. Cooper and Vindhya Buthpitiya. Produced by Abeera Arif-Bashir
In the rapidly changing urban landscapes of Jaffna and Lahore, the social and public space of cinema halls are recognisable for their longevity and resilience amid insurgency, war, and infrastructural breakdown. ‘Scratches on Celluloid’ explores such urban cinemas as symbols of state-enforced amnesia and collective attempts to remember.
The similar stories heard in cinema halls in Lahore and Jaffna contrast with a wider history of institutional and military collaboration between the Pakistani and Sri Lankan governments. Conducted through extensive ethnographic research in Jaffna and Lahore the film seeks to contribute to an understanding of how belonging and exclusion are forged in the built heritage of urban cinemas.
Screening Link (07.08.2021 – 21.08.2021):
https://www.ishara.org/ishara-online/scratches-on-celluloid/
Talks
Saturday, August 21
Scratches on Celluloid: Timothy P.A. Cooper and Vindhya Buthpitiya
19:30 – 20:30
Link to attend event: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82721007007?pwd=dmN4anRsR3FUTXlGRTdEUzVPN2xGZz09
Following the online screening of Scratches on Celluloid, directors Vindhya Buthpitiya and Timothy Cooper engage in an online dialogue with Sabih Ahmed and Natasha Ginwala expanding on the questions, processes and challenges that went into the making of the film.
Saturday, August 28
Hurufis and the Materiality of Language: Shahzad Bashir with Slavs and Tatars
19:30 – 20:30
Link to attend event: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/
82365007611?pwd =M1lWbDVBZjNUdC s5TUIyWDZBNndsUT09
Hurufis and the Materiality of Language is a presentation by Shahzad Bashir, scholar of Islamic Humanities, followed by a discussion with Slavs and Tatars on the history of Hurufism and the possibilities that open when language is regarded beyond a transactional, analytical and heuristic tool. Tracing its genealogy back to the work of Fazlallah Astarabadi (d. 1394) and his followers, Bashir expands on how Hurufis perceived language as being simultaneously bounded and infinite.
For more information, please visit
www.colomboscope.lk