SISTER LIBRARY | AQUI THAMI
Sister Library @ FICA Reading Room
April 20 - 25, 2018
The Opening Event: Perspectives on women's voices in reading, writing and publishing: A discussion with Urvashi Butalia, Belinder Dhanoa and Aqui Thami. was held on April 20, 2018 at the FICA Reading Room.
The first edition of Sister Library opened at FICA Reading Room. The Sister Library, conceptualised and curated by artist Aqui Thami, has come to our very own FICA Reading Room. This travelling feminist library will allow for an immersive experience and a continued conversation in an attempt to bridge the gap between the mainstream consumption of male-oriented books and the actual diversity of female voices. It is an ever-growing curated collection of over a hundred Indian and international novels, texts, zines, and publications by women writers and artists. You can have a look at the wonderful collection at https://www.instagram.com/sister.library/
The opening event materialized as a discussion amongst leading publisher Urvashi Butalia, writer and artist Belinder Dhanoa, and Aqui herself. The Sister Library will remain accessible at FICA Reading Room till 25th April with other exciting events.
This was follwed by an Open Mic session on April 21 which constituted a free-wheeling conversation around gender constructs.
This project was supported by the Inlaks Fine Art Award 2018 and will be travelling further to Mumbai, Cochin, Pune, Goa, and Bangalore.
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Aqui Thami is an artist who bases her art around the culture of DIY, self-publishing, and intervention tactics. She runs Dharavi Art Room, and is a member of Bombay Underground, a collective that experiments with various public art practices, including zine making and performance art. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree from TISS, Mumbai.
Belinder Dhanoa is a writer and artist. She currently teaches Creative Writing at Postgraduate level at the School of Culture and Creative Expression at Ambedkar University. Her novel Waiting for Winter was published by Penguin India and she has also written children's books for the National Book Trust. Her latest novel is Echoes in the Well published by Zubaan Books.
Urvashi Butalia is a renowned feminist publisher and writer. She is co-founder of Kali for Women, India's first feminist publisher, and now director of Zubaan. She is author of the award-winning oral history of Partition, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India.
