KOCHI: Ancient maritime trade connections and the global cultural exchanges they fostered, with the seaport of Muziris as a prime example of the linkages, will form the central theme of a day-long seminar at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014 on Friday.
The seminar, which starts at 9 am, will take the audience through the research done on this ancient port town that was situated along the river Periyar and traded in spices, precious and semi-precious stones, silk, ivory and more with Europe and China.
Scholars from home and abroad will talk about trade connections, going back three to four millennia, when people travelled extensively around the ‘Indian Ocean World’ consisting of lands along its shores.
Another presentation will be on the 10th and 11th-century maritime commerce at China’s Song court, which developed shipbuilding technology, leading to the spread of Chinese trading diasporas in several regions of the Indian Ocean, including the Malabar coast.
The seminar, conducted by the Indian Museum, Kolkata, in collaboration with the Institut de Chandernagor, Hooghly and KMB’14, ends with a film ‘The Early Contacts, the Birth of Navigation and the Malabar Coast.’Another seminar on ‘Maritime Heritage with Reference to Muziris’ at the Aspinwall pavilion part of KMB’s popular Let’s Talk series, will be held on on Sunday.
Titled ‘Antimonuments and Subsculptures,’ the seminar also has an interaction with Mexican artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer lined up.
The Mexican artist, whose work ‘Pan-anthem’ located at David Hall, is known for his interactive installations that are at the intersection of architecture and performance art.
His main interest is in creating platforms for public participation, by perverting technologies such as robotics, computerised surveillance or telematic networks.
The programmes are open to the public.
The exhibition, meanwhile, continues to draw a steady stream of visitors, including celebrities.