Kanika Gupta, an activist-in-residence at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, is art historian, trained dancer and film maker. Since July 2021, she has been working extensively with the museum's Indian collection together with Ralf Čeplak Mencin, a museum curator, responsible for Asian, Oceanic, and Australian collections. In her research, Kanika Gupta illuminates ancient knowledge that can be traced in the museum's Indian collection, and connects it with today's global environmental challenges.
It Was In Spring ...
Within the TAKING CARE project, she created a 30 minutes long documentary film that tells the story of her family house that has been demolished together with its garden and trees, and replaced with the new multistorey building surrounded only with concrete. In the film we see seasons changing, from spring to summer, to rains, to winter and then spring again. Through the eyes of a tree, which is the last surviving being of its species in the house that once stood, we witness the last year as this house saw, its last fragrance, last roses, last festivities, its last thunder and the last drops of scented rain. This film is a statement against the extremely fake and capitalist culture of cement and plastic that is sold to us everyday.
The screening will be held twice, on Thursdays, 5 and 12 August 2021, at 19.00 at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Metelkova 2, 1000 Ljubljana. As part of the screening, Kanika Gupta and Tina Palaić prepared a displaycase with selected objects from the museum's Indian collection that are the same as the ones we can see in the film.
For more information here
The Cursed Land of Lustful Women
In ancient India, like in many other ancient cultures, folklore around trees is found in abundance. Trees were the object of worship and ancestors buried under them became spirits of the trees. Yakshi was the tree spirit, or the tree deity, presiding over forests and rivers. And then, social patterns began to change and man began to strive for more of everything, more resources, more power and more wealth. Gupta's performance narrates a folk story which comes from the times when this social and environmental transition was taking place. She attempts to focus on sounds of nature, and takes these as music instead of recorded sound. The performance is full of movements done in silence, redolent of sentiment, the juice of aesthetic pleasure.
The performance will be held on Sunday, 15 August, Tuesday, 17 August and Thursday, 19 August 2021 at 20.30 in a park in the vicinity of the museum.
For more information here
How trees define our existence and change our lives?
In this wonderfully conceived poetry competition, Kanika Gupta invites people from all walks of life to contribute their orginal poetry, taking inspiration from trees. She expects handwritten entries in Slovene or English. The two best Slovene and the two best English poems will be published on the museum's website along with a few lines about the author, and surprise gifts.
The poetry competition runs between 10 July and 15 August 2021.
For more information here