Sapphoo for Equality & Pratyyay Gender Trust pressent
DIALLOGUES annuual Calcutta Lesbbian Gay Bisexxual Transgender film & video festival 2009
Tentaative Scchedule
Friday,, June 12, 2009 2 3.00PM – 3.30PM:
Inaugurration of Exh hibition “Exccavation of Feminine Memories”
An Exhibittion (12th -14th June) J on imageeries of Homo-eerotic Love in A Ancient Indian Tradition T by Giti Thadaani in partnershhip with Sapphoo for Equality annd Pratyay Gennder Trust.
Giti Thaddani, a radicaal lesbian activvist, visual artist, photographer p and a Delhi-based D independeent researcheer, is excavvating the concealedd tapestry of fem minine kinship, genealogy and sexuaal or erotic bonnding between women in ancient Inndian traditions. She traveled across the country ovver the last 25 years and phootographed temples and a images of tthe goddess. 20 2 of those images are a the part of this exhibbition. The exhibition presentation is a poetic phhotographic journey into the archeetypal philosophies and cosmologies of the Shaaktic feminine through a dramatic interplay of vissuals depicting same–sex erotica. She S says, “Hom mosexuality is very much part and parcel of Indicc histories. In fact there were manny celebratory traditions that celebrated it. There iss ample iconogrraphy and textuual material to prove this. What how wever is imporrtant is that theese histories have h been ignoored, ravaged by different monotheistic invasions.. Further thesee histories have for the mostt part been wrritten from a coompletely heteerosexual point of view – whether coming c from thhe hindutva, orientalist or eveen what poses as the ‘seculaar’ academic. In effect the technique of othering homosexuality h a ‘western’ is not unique to India. Most paatriarchal culturees will invisibiliize their own homosexual as traditions and then blamee it on the ‘otheer’.
4.00PM – 5.00PM:
Sodomyy Laws Repo ort Launchin ng
6.00 PM M – 6.30PM:
Inaugurration of thee Festival
A panel discussion d folloowed by launching of the boook “This Alien Legacy” on thhe colonial origins of so-called sodomy laws by Alooke Gupta organnized in collabooration with Hum man Rights Watch, US SA.
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