THF Dialogues 2
Mindscapes: Mental Health and Creative Practices
Dr Bhrigupati Singh and Soujanyaa Boruah, moderated by Sisir Thapa
Tuesday, 23rd September
1:45 PM IST | At Govt. College of Art & Craft, Agartala and on Zoom
Register for the online talk here.
The second conversation in the THF Dialogues series reflects on the psychic toll of life in the Himalayan region, where colonial histories, environmental precarity and rapid development converge to shape both individual and collective mental health. The talk will attempt to bring artistic, anthropological, and philosophical perspectives into the fold, seeking ways to read tension, resilience, and repair through a different light.
The speakers include anthropologist Brighupati Singh who has written extensively on mental illness, health and poverty as well as new media artist and researcher Soujanyaa Boruah reflecting on her work with the pastoral Gaddi community in Himachal Pradesh and the ecological and emotional impacts of grassland degradation on them. The session will be moderated by Sisir Thapa who will bring his perspective as a visual artist based in Agartala on questions of memory, social stigma and the pressures of a rapidly changing environment. Together, these perspectives offer new imaginaries for how we approach healing and wellbeing today.
Bios:
Dr Bhrigupati Singh is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, working at the intersection of medical anthropology, religious studies, philosophy, and psychiatry. He completed his PhD in anthropology at Johns Hopkins University in 2010. Before joining SOAS, he taught at Brown University, Ashoka University, King’s College London, and held visiting positions in Psychiatry at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS, Delhi). At present he is working on two related book projects: a book of essays on concepts of the psyche titled Waxing and Waning Life: Spectrum Analysis of Mental Illness and Health, and an anthropological monograph titled The Riot Laboratory: Hindu and Muslim Neighbours in Delhi, set in the “resettlement colony” of Trilokpuri in East Delhi. Alongside a core focus on poverty, mental illness and wellbeing, he has also consistently pursued a related research theme, focused on moving beyond critiques of Eurocentrism, and what it would mean to “decolonize” thought, not as a form of nativism, but in finding new ways of thinking about how concepts and genealogies of thought cross regions, disciplines, and religious and secular formations.
Soujanyaa Boruah is a new media artist and interaction designer whose practice lies at the intersection of technology, ecology, and pedagogy. After leaving the corporate sector over a decade ago, she has been based in the Himalayan foothills, working closely with pastoral communities on grassroots innovation and ecological awareness. Her ongoing project, Project Tension, combines methods from anthropology, art, and botany to document the shifting lifeworld of the Gaddi agropastoral community, with recent presentations at Dundee Contemporary Arts, the Energy in Motion conference at the V&A Dundee, and SOAS, University of London. She has exhibited internationally at the RIXC Open Fields Exhibition (Latvia), Utopia 2040: Reclaiming the Future(Helsinki), the 15th AWID International Forum (Thailand), the Kerala Museum (Kochi), the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (Delhi), as well as through site-specific interventions across wildlife sanctuaries in Northeast India. She is also a founding member of Dhaarchidi, a FRIDA-funded young women’s collective for research and artistic expression.
Sisir Thapa is a sculptor and educator trained at Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan, where he completed his BFA (2005) and MFA (2007). Over the years, his work has been shown widely with institutions and galleries such as the Raza Foundation, Lalit Kala Akademi, Jehangir Art Gallery, Gallery Espace, Akar Prakar Contemporary, and many more. He has also been part of numerous workshops and collaborative projects with organizations including Britto Artists Trust, Uronto, and the Department of Arts and Culture, Government of Meghalaya. Since 2016, Sisir has been teaching as Assistant Professor at the Department of Fine Arts, Tripura University, alongside continuing his artistic practice.