Striking works of art by women artists from South Asia are on display in Leeds as part of a national programme of events about art, conflict and feminism in the region.

The pioneering and multifaceted programme ‘Between Kismet and Karma: South Asian Women Artists Respond to Conflict’ includes an exhibition, a symposium, an artist residency series and a film festival. It has been conceived through a curatorial partnership between Fareda Khan, Deputy Director Shisha, the international agency for contemporary South Asian crafts and visual arts and Dr Ananya Kabir, Senior Lecturer in Post Colonial Literature at the University of Leeds and enabled by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Knowledge Transfer Fellowship. Delivered in collaboration with cultural organisations nationally and internationally the programme is running from February to May 2010.   Its aim is to explore how women artists from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka respond to conflict specifically in relation to following themes: Bodies / Cities; Borders / Nation; Artist / Artisan / Activist.

Dr Kabir has said: “The art works are visually fantastic and thought-provoking, exploring conflict in the environment, between religion and nationalism and modernity and tradition. Between Kismet and Karma demonstrates how expertise and knowledge both in the form of academic research and contemporary South Asian visual art and curatorial practice can come together regionally and nationally.”

A full programme can be viewed on the Shisha website.

In this podcast Dr Ananya Kabir talks about the challenges in bringing the programme of events together as well as discussing what she hopes will be the legacy of the programme.

Running time 10 min

 A transcript of this podcast is also available (pdf 43kb)