This weekend, two art festivals in Bengaluru discuss gender and sexuality

Gender Bender and the Queer and Allies Art Festival in Bengaluru this weekend 
Ashish Chopra
Ashish Chopra

Two annual arts festivals — Gender Bender and Queer and Allies Art Festival — have been promoting awareness and creating a dialogue about gender and sexuality in the city. This weekend, both the festivals return with a focus on inclusivity and visual arts. Here’s what to expect:
 

Gender Bender
This is the fourth edition of the arts festival by Goethe-Institut and Sandbox Collective. The festival will see talks by personalities such as filmmaker and writer Paromita Vohra, editor of The Ladies Finger, Nisha Susan, ESPNcricinfo.com’s senior editor, Sharda Ugra, and historian, Ramachandra Guha. The talks are on topics from feminism and sex to sports. The festival will also showcase works by the grantees for 2018. “This year’s edition of Gender Bender is bigger than it has been over the last few years. A lot of the artists this year are working with visual material, such as zines, comics, interactive installations and films,” says Debosmita Dam, from Sandbox Collective. For example, artists Furqan Jawed and Sohil Bhatia are working on an installation examining the legal material required to undergo official gender transition in documents. 

Entry free. August 22 - 26. At Goethe-Institut, Indira Nagar

An installation from Gender Bender titled Baya Bhakhti
An installation from Gender Bender titled Baya Bhakhti

Queer and Allies Art Festival
MIST is an 8-year old collective from the city that works towards creating awareness about and within the LGBT community. The fourth edition of the Queer and Allies Art Festival will see queer and queer-friendly artistes present their works. The festival will screen movies such as My Son Is Gay (Tamil), Tritiya (Malayalam), Any Other Day (Marathi) and silent movies Khwaaish and The Queen. This will be followed by art exhibitions and live performances. “We usually notice that the same set of people take part in LGBT events in the city. So we have opened it up to artistes from other cities as well as supporters of the LGBT community, so we see a lot of diversity in our line-up,” says Shyam Konnur, the founder of MIST. One can expect performances by artistes such as Sayantika Majumder, a spoken word poet, Sonali Dalvi who will be dancing and talking about transgender rights and dancer Ashish Chopra.  


Donor passes Rs. 100. Tomorrow, 12.30 pm. At Commune Coworks, Koramangala


anagha@newindian
express.com  @anaghzzz

 

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