Invitation - National Seminar on "Womens spaces, Womens voices in Mumbai"

                            The Departments of English and Mass Media,

The Department of Social Communications Media, Sophia-Shree B K Somani Polytechnic

and

Sophia Centre for Women's Studies and Development

SOPHIA COLLEGE CAMPUS

BHULABHAI DESAI ROAD, MUMBAI 400 026

Tel: 23512642, 23513280, Fax: 23513183

Dear Friends, 

As part of the continuing series of Mumbai-themed seminars being hosted at Sophia College over the last few years, the Sophia Centre for Women’s Studies and Development in collaboration with the Departments of English and Mass Media, Sophia College, and the Social Communications Media Department, Sophia Polytechnic, is conducting an interdisciplinary seminar on the theme of Women’s Spaces, Women’s Voices in Mumbai at the Sophia Bhabha Auditorium on Friday, 6th and Saturday, 7th January 2012. The seminar will focus on the different ways in which various genres - the visual arts, film and literature - have represented and articulated the efforts of women to integrate economic pressures, exigencies of employment, and exposure to a vast array of other perspectives and cultures through globalization and rapidly-burgeoning information technology.   

The seminar is open to students and faculty of Mumbai colleges as well as the general public.   As with the previous seminars, the organizers hope to expose students and faculty to emerging fields and to areas of research and thinking beyond the limits of the prescribed syllabus. 

Registration may be done in advance at Sophia Centre for Women's Studies and Development, Sophia Campus, Mumbai 400 026 (Contact: englishdeptsophia@gmail.com, ; Tel: 022-23513280 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              022-23513280      end_of_the_skype_highlighting). Alternatively, you may register on the spot on 6th January, 2011. However, if you could call and inform us about your attendance in advance, it would help us to make the necessary arrangements.

Dates:               6th and 7th of January, 2012

Time:                9.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.

Venue:              Sophia Bhabha Auditorium, Sophia College Campus, Mumbai 400 026

Registration:     Students :  Rs. 250/-

     General :    Rs. 400/-

We look forward to having you with us at the seminar.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. (Sr.) Ananda Amritmahal

Head and Co-ordinator                                                                                                                       

Dept of English, Sophia College

SCWSD                                                  

                                                              

Dr. Jeroo Mulla
Head
Sophia Polytechnic
                              

Official Poster - National Seminar on "Women's Spaces, Women's Voices in Mumbai"

National Seminar (Women's Spaces, Women's voices in Mumbai) Logo

Logo of the National Seminar on "Women's Spaces, Women's Voices in Mumbai" at Sophia College, Mumbai.
Date : 6th and 7th January 2012
Venue : Sophia Bhabha Auditorium (Sophia College Campus)

National Seminar on Women's Spaces, Women's voices in Mumbai

The efforts of women to integrate economic pressures, exigencies of employment, exposure to a vast array of other perspectives and cultures through globalisation and rapidly-burgeoning information technology have been articulated and represented in a variety of genres–the visual arts, film, and literature.  As part of the continuing series of Mumbai-themed seminars being hosted at Sophia College over the last few years, the Sophia Centre for Women’s Studies and Development in collaboration with the Departments of English and Mass Media, Sophia College, and the Social Communications Media Department, Sophia Polytechnic, is conducting an interdisciplinary seminar on the theme of Women’s Spaces, Women’s Voices in Mumbai at the Sophia Bhabha Auditorium on Friday, 6th and Saturday, 7th January 2012. 

The seminar is open to students and faculty of Mumbai colleges as well as the general public.  The sessions feature papers by scholars from various academic disciplines and practitioners in the fields of art and literature. These include sessions devoted to Women in Literature, Women in Art and a historical investigation into the spaces allocated to and claimed by women in Mumbai. As with the previous seminars, the organisers hope to expose students and faculty to emerging fields and to areas of research and thinking beyond the limits of the prescribed syllabus.  This year an added dimension is that an entire session has been devoted to student presentations, both on video and as paper presentations. This offers students the experience of working on these topics with academic rigour, while student participants of the seminar will be inspired by seeing what their peers have achieved.

In addition to the academic sessions, we have four panel discussions – Women in the Newsroom; Women using New Media for art, business and activism; Women in Documentary Film; and Women making Feature Films featuring achievers in these spaces like Kiran Rao, Bishakha Dutta and Paromita Vohra.

Among the attractions of the event is a photography exhibition by the alumnae of the Social Communications Media Department, Sophia Polytechnic, many of who are professional photographers. Additionally, Vacha, an NGO focussing on women and adolescent girls, will be displaying an exhibition of photographs taken by adolescent girls living in bastis. As a special feature, Sanjukta Wagh and her troup will present a dance performance related to the theme of the conference on the evening of the 6^th of January.

Jalsa - The Folk Festival (Prism,BSP and Art & Design)

Jalsa - The Folk festival came to a grand end on 25th November with the Jalsa Mela becoming a big success. What started off as a small initiative to promote folk art forms in Sophia college became a huge hit with the Students and Staff members. 'Jalsa' (Which means Celebration) was the brain child of Three students, Priya Adivarekar (Vice-Cultural Secretary), Divya Das (BSP Secretary) and Madhuri Dhariwal (Art and Design secretary). Their main aim was to promote lesser known Folk art forms amongst the 21st Century Urban Mumbai crowd.
“It’s our final year and we wanted to promote folk art, music and theatre because there is hardly any awareness about them,” said Adivarekar, vice-cultural secretary of the college (Source - DNA)
Skype meetings were their best bet during the Diwali vacations which helped them plan everything related to workshops,competitions,workforce members,duties etc.
After having a zillion skype meetings & calls, The workforce was finally in place.
Priya,Divya and Madhuri were the Secretaries of Jalsa while Rumela.Basu, Prita Sundaram & Charlenne Dunne were named the Senior executives.

To create awareness about the Folk forms, the core committee decided to focus on Art & Theatre workshops. “One may have heard about Madhubani, but how does one know what it is all about? The workshops will ensure that people get to know more about these art forms,” said Dhariwal.
The team found it difficult to find the right people to conduct the workshops, but through local networks, they managed to rope in four folk artists. But their biggest challenge was getting sponsors (Source - DNA).
But in the end, The team managed to pull it off and the result was fantastic. Registrations for the workshops had to be stopped on the 2nd day of the festival as the seats were full. The art workshops got an amazing response and the 'Art Exhibition' on the final day was well appreciated. The theatre workshop participants got a chance to perform for IBN Lokmat and also got an oppurtunity to perform the 'Street Play' based on Eve teasing for our College Day show. Photography competition participants did an excellent job by capturing some of the finest moments from Indian folk art forms. The Folk singing competition was well attended. The Diya designing competition saw some fabulous artists. While Shreya Shetty from FYBMM walked away with the 1st prize in the Photography competition, Samikshya Madhukullya from SYBA won the Folk singing competition.
With Traditional Music playing in the background, Everyone was welcomed with a warm smile in the 'Jalsa Mela'. The Photography Exhibition was loved by everyone. The Photo stall saw Students & Teachers posing for pictures with different traditional props. Different stalls gave Folk art lovers a chance to shop.With items like Papier Jewellery,Handmade Diaries,Jholas, Saree bags etc on sale, Everyone was seen shopping their hearts out. The Dharma Bharathi NGO sold items made by the NGO children. The food stall was a hit with items like Thepla, Rosogullas,Karanji to choose from.
In all, The Jalsa Folk Festival was a success! As they graduate next year, the secretaries hope that they have taken a small yet significant step in creating an interest in folk art.
Sr.Anila Verghese (Principal) said, "We hope Jalsa becomes a bigger festival next year"
Well, We hope so too!