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Language is Migrant: Natasha Ginwala on Hybrid Conditions of Belonging

Jyotsna Nambiar Sep 05, 2021

Like most island nations, Sri Lanka invites both isolation and exchange. This makes it an interesting site for Colomboscope, an interdisciplinary arts festival that is centred in the nation’s capital.

Colomboscope 2022: In Conversation with Anushka Rajendran

Arushi Vats Jan 20, 2022

Curator for Colomboscope 2022, Anushka Rajendran discusses the festival concept Language is Migrant, drawn from Cecilia Vicuña's poem-manifesto of the same title.

Nodes of Listening: Reflections on “Artist Encounters” at Colomboscope

Annalisa Mansukhani Feb 12, 2022

The “Artist Encounters” series speaks profoundly of the kinds of acts—of transmission, experimentation, narration—being helmed by the seventh edition of Colomboscope, Language is Migrant.

Radio Colomboscope: Connecting the Aural Histories of the South

Ankan Kazi Feb 14, 2022

Colomboscope 2022 organised an online radio programme titled A Thousand Channels, for which Syma Tariq curated a selection of audio texts, sound works, music, poetry and conversations.

Reverberations and Reading in Residence: In Conversation with Omer Wasim and Thisath Thoradeniya

Annalisa Mansukhani Feb 15, 2022

Omer Wasim and Thisath Thoradeniya discusses the nature of collaboration that emerged, their co-making rhythms and the sites of remembrance at the Tandem Residencies, Colomboscope.

As Light as a Husk: Pallavi Paul’s Walking as Alibi: The Dreams of Cynthia

Arushi Vats Feb 17, 2022

About ten minutes into Pallavi Paul’s online performance Walking as Alibi, a string of voices begin humming haunting tunes as the screen flashes a dictum repeatedly: “Think of a lullaby, Now hum it to yourself.”

The Changing Face of Slave Island: In Conversation with We Are From Here

Tashyana Handy Feb 19, 2022

In this conversation, Firi Rahman and Lojithan Ramanathan discuss Ashray, an interactive installation featured at Colomboscope 2022.

Imagined Memory: In Conversation with Liz Fernando

Abilaschan Balamuraley Feb 22, 2022

Artist Liz Fernando, a German of Sri Lankan descent, works with archival images and visual memory to explore different stories of migration.

Body, Landscape and War: In Conversation with Aziz Hazara

Ankita Ghosh Jun 23, 2023

Bringing the everyday experience of growing up in the middle of war in Afghanistan, interdisciplinary artist Aziz Hazara channels his coming-of-age in such a space.

Spatio-Sensorial Belonging: Omer Wasim’s Rites Adrift

Sukanya Deb Sep 08, 2023

Curated by Anushka Rajendran and presented in collaboration with the Shrine Empire gallery, Omer Wasim's Rites Adrift speaks of displacement and ritual.

To Experience Aurality: Synaesthetic Notations with Veeranganakumari Solanki

Arundhati Chauhan Dec 16, 2023

Synaesthetic Notations is curated by Veeranganakumari Solanki and recently opened as a part of the 8th Serendipity Arts Festival 2023 at the Old Goa Medical College (GMC) in Panjim, Goa.

Collaborative Seedings: Grounded Artistic Practices, Pedagogies and Questions

Pamudu Tennakoon Feb 01, 2024

The latest edition of Colomboscope, titled Way of the Forest, explores ecologies, histories, environments, pasts, presents, and most poignantly, collective and individual relationships with the environments that surround us.

Expanding the Field: Curators' Roundtable

Mallika Visvanathan Feb 07, 2024

As part of a series of talks hosted at the fifteenth India Art Fair 2024, Curators’ Roundtable: Criticality in the Contemporary saw the coming together of curators from across a range of institutions and diverse approaches to practice.

Weather(ing) Crisis: On 28° North and Parallel Weathers

Mallika Visvanathan Mar 15, 2024

The exhibition 28° North and Parallel Weathers presents an intervention that constitutes a long term seasonal preoccupation with water and its myriad conceptual possibilities.

Constructing Worlds: Ruwangi Amarasinghe’s Fantastical Forests

Pamudu Tennakoon Apr 09, 2024

Drawing from a lifelong interest in the natural world and an affinity with animals, Ruwani Amarasinghe explores the world we live in through non-human counterparts.

Placing Photography: Reflecting on Recent Curatorial Practices

Anoushkha Prasad May 02, 2024

With conversations in the programme seeking to reflect on contemporary artistic and curation practices, the panel discussion titled Framing Photographic Practice focused on photographic images as a site of producing and preserving histories and cultures while also interrogating the impact of photography on our experiences as we navigate through the ceaseless streaming online landscape.

Curating South Asia: On Festivals and Institutions with Natasha Ginwala and Abeer Gupta

Editorial Jul 13, 2024

In this public talk moderated by Arundhati Chauhan, Natasha Ginwala, Artistic Director of Colomboscope, and Abeer Gupta, Curator of Visual Arts at Arthshila, discuss the innovative and collaborative methods pursued in festival organizing.

Creating Community: In Conversation with Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam

Mallika Visvanathan Nov 15, 2024

The Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF), founded by filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam in 2012, is one of India’s foremost independent film festivals. We spoke to the founders about why they started the festival, the importance of community, the infrastructural role festivals like this can play and the future of independent film festivals in the country.

On Partitions, Community Memory and Resistance: In Conversation with Karachi LaJamia

Radhika Saraf Jun 03, 2025

In the second part of this interview with Shahana Rajani and Zahra Malkani, the founders of the arts collective Karachi LaJamia, they share with us the double-edged sword of representation—the violence of mapping as a tool for erasures of indigenous communities while also being a method for enabling community memory, testimony and resistance.

In Person: Basir Mahmood on A Body Bleeds More Than It Contains

Radhika Saraf Feb 26, 2026

Recently exhibited at the ninth edition of Colomboscope, Rhythm Alliances, Basir Mahmood’s multi-channel video installation A Body Bleeds More Than It Contains (2026) engages with the demolition of Bari Studios, a central production site in Lahore for Lollywood films since the early 1950s.

Weaving Video Stories: In Conversation with Mekh Limbu

Radhika Saraf Feb 27, 2026

Recently exhibited at the ninth edition of Colomboscope: Rhythm Alliances, Mekh Limbu’s Chotlung: traversing spirits, redemptive songs (2025) explores weaving as both an act and a metaphor that invokes ancestral wisdom through the grandmother spirit Yuma and Yakthung rituals. These inspire the continued struggles of the Adibasi–Janajati Yakthung community in response to the privatisation and capitalisation of their natural and sacred landscapes.

On Protest, Memory and History: In Conversation with Mekh Limbu

Radhika Saraf Feb 28, 2026

In the second part of this conversation on Mekh Limbu’s Chotlung: traversing spirits, redemptive songs (2025), recently exhibited at the ninth edition of Colomboscope: Rhythm Alliances, Limbu reflects on the convergence of art and activism, emphasising the necessity of collective practices for shared political and social struggles of Indigenous communities.

It’s Uyghur Music, Google It: Unpacking The Silk Road of Pop

Upasana Das Apr 07, 2026

Screened at the ninth edition of Colomboscope: Rhythm Alliances, Sameer Farooq’s The Silk Road of Pop (2013) was filmed in the late 2000s, at a time when a generation of young Uyghur musicians, chafing against the primitivist stereotypes imposed by China, turned to genres with a history of rebellion, such as rock and hip-hop, to articulate their anger and resistance.

Alternate Allegiances: The Rules of the Uyghur Underground

Upasana Das Apr 08, 2026

Sameer Farooq’s The Silk Road of Pop (2013), recently screened at Colomboscope: Rhythm Alliances, traces Uyghur music through intersecting perspectives—from underground musicians and hardcore crowds to a fangirl moving between arenas, clubs and basements, as they revel in the shared energy of being young and rebellious.

Underground Music: The Sounds of Protest in Hind Meddeb’s Cinema

Upasana Das May 04, 2026

In this conversation with Upasana Das, Hind Meddeb speaks about Electro Chaabi (2013) and Sudan, Remember Us (2024)—the first an intimate portrait of musicians navigating artistic struggle in Egypt; the second, an act of remembrance for the youth-led fall of an authoritarian regime.

Chobi Mela: Forging Political Solidarities

Editorial May 23, 2026

On Saturday, 2 May 2026, ASAP | art organised an online panel discussion with Munem Wasif, Sarker Protick and Tanvi Mishra, in conversation with Vincent Hasselbach, on the eleventh edition of the Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography, which opened in Dhaka in January 2026, a month before Bangladesh’s long-awaited elections.

Rust, Reverence, Resistance: Zahra Malkani’s Noorani Metal Sound

Ruchika Dhillon Jun 16, 2026

Zahra Malkani’s first major UK solo exhibition, Noorani Metal Sound (27 March–21 June 2026), presented at Auto Italia, brings together five years of field-based research and recordings tracing oral traditions of lament, devotion and resistance among communities facing ecological dispossession in the Indus River delta and along the Makran Coast.