Rekha Raghunathan
BENGALURU : While borders still remain closed, this upcoming event will give you a chance to explore the libraries and lore of other lands. In its sixth edition, City Scripts – the annual writings festival of Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) – has partnered with the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan and the Danish Cultural Institute to bring together perspectives from the world over. Taking place online, the four-day festival will explore ideas of home, space, mental health, relationships and more through workshops, interactive theatre, exhibitions, virtual walks and book discussions.
“Since libraries and archives have been closed, we’ve collaborated with other institutes and have a virtual walkthrough of the Dokk1 Library in Denmark and the Cologne Public Library in Germany. These will be recorded videos but they will provide a 360-degree view and the librarians will be available to interact with participants,” says Rekha Raghunathan, lead, Word Lab and Library, IIHS. Participants can also look forward to a public art walk by Gábor Doleviczényi from Essen, Germany, and an audio experience of Lodhi Gardens in Delhi. “Facilitators from Delhi Walk Festival will be present for this and the session will include ambient sound and other such elements to virtually transport people to a different place,” adds Raghunathan.
For workshops, the festival has organised a comic book workshop, an idea that came by after the year that was. “Given how 2020 was, we wanted a session that would help people tell their stories,” says Raghunathan, of the session that will be conducted by writer CG Salamander and illustrator Sahitya Rani.
While the festival usually has no particular theme, this year they chose to focus on 2020. This gave way to sessions like a book discussion on Chinmay Tumbe’s Age Of Pandemics (1817-1920): How They Shaped India and the World, and another session on mental health in the age of corona. The festival will present a photo exhibition and discussion, ‘Documenting Our Lives and Cities During COVID-19’, and includes a
playback theatre session.
“The idea is to give people a snapshot of how different cities experienced 2020, through different artforms. And to also help them find comfort in the fact that in some way, we’ve all gone through something similar,” says Raghunathan. The four-day event is free for all and begins on Feb. 25. To register, check cityscripts.iihs.co.in
