About this Event
You are warmly invited to “DISTERRA”. This event will show photographs and two documentary films which form part of a two-year project involving artists, filmmakers, anthropologists, and criminologists spanning London, Paris and Karachi. It will involve panel and open discussions with artists and academics including Karachi-based documentary photographer, photojournalist and filmmaker Khaula Jamil, cinematographer and documentary filmmaker Nadir Siddiqui, photographer and lens-based artist Ali Baluch, and sculptor, contemporary artist, and educationist Adeela Suleman, and researcher and multimedia storyteller Maria Patel, with Professor Nichola Khan (University of Edinburgh), Dr Zoha Waseem (University of Warwick), and Dr Orson Nava (Ravensbourne University).
The event is hosted by our partner in London, the Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC).
About: This exhibition and film event is part of the larger DISTERRA network which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK. The DISTERRA Network looks for ways to cross boundaries by bringing together academics, artists, and communities; to build new coalitions of interested people and knowledge around “Terrains of Disappearance”. These terrains centre on historical and contemporary problems of displacement, migration and disappearance. They occur across the wider terrain of ‘Asia-Europe’ and city environments. DISTERRA focuses particular attention on people affected by migration within and across national borders, armed conflicts, environmental and climate impacts. We take disappearance as a fertile laboratory for understanding some hostile terrains of absent investigations, political blank spaces, official denials, and unresolved deaths. This invokes an ambiguous terrain of physical landscapes and forms of anguish and grief associated with unresolved loss. In this scene, migration is a cross-cutting lens linking forced displacement and missing people.
DISTERRA has two case studies: one in Karachi, one in Paris. In Paris asylum seekers from Asia mostly come from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Most people are psychologically exhausted after years on the move; many are refused, many are homeless. We shine a light on the despair of an invisible population with invisible symptoms. In Karachi, layers of armed conflicts and forms of urban dispossession (violence, evictions, demolitions, slum and camp clearances) interact with communities affected by floods and long statelessness. These two different cityscapes, Paris and Karachi, resonate with the possibilities in unexpected juxtaposition. They remind us, not least, of the Paris studio of the Pakistani artist Saadeqain who illustrated Albert Camus’ 1966 novel L’Étranger (The Outsider).
DISTERRA has a strong creative arts focus. We are working with art, film, documentary, photography, literary non-fiction, and arts advocacy to engage the public and affected communities about the entangled nature of disappearances across different scenarios.
Programme:
16:00. Welcome
16:15-17:00. Photographic Exhibition by Khaula Jamil & Ali Baluch (the exhibition will run through the duration of the event in the Atrium)
17:00-18:00. Documentary: “DISTERRA, Paris” by Orson Nava (followed by panel discussion)
18:00-18:30: Short Films by Khaula Jamil ("While God Waits"), Nadir Siddiqui ("The Valleys Our Ancestors Chose"), and Adeela Suleman ("Killing Fields of Karachi").
18:30-19:00: Documentary: “DISTERRA: Terrains of Disappearance in Karachi” by Khaula Jamil & Nadir Siddiqui
19:00-19:30: Panel Discussion
19:30-20:00: Closing Drinks
(All film screenings will begin on time in the Atrium Conference Room).
This event is open to all. Entrance is free. Registration is required.
Event venue & nearby stays
Aga Khan Centre, 10 Handyside Street, London, United Kingdom
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