Event Calendar
ARCHIVING SOLIDARITIES Poster Women: A Visual History of the Women\’s Movement in India
Urvashi Butalia, writer, publisher and activist
- This event has passed.
Dear All,
The Department of Visual Arts is delighted to invite you to the third colloquium in the Visual Arts Colloquium Series, Monsoon 2025.
Title: ARCHIVING SOLIDARITIES Poster Women: A Visual History of the Women's Movement in India
Speaker: Urvashi Butalia , writer, publisher and activist
Date: Tuesday, September 30th, 2025
Time: 4.00 pm
Venue: Visual Arts Studio (near sports block)
Abstract: In 2005-6 Zubaan embarked on a journey to collect and archive feminist posters created across India. Among the questions they asked themselves was: how had the movement, or the different campaigns in the movement, imagined themselves? How had they communicated their priorities, their messages, in both words and pictures? How and where were these posters made? Who owned them? Did they represent a particular kind of aesthetic? This talk will engage with these questions and also look at the collective processes of putting together such an archive, establishing ownership, thinking of access and more.
Bio: Urvashi Butalia is co-founder of India’s first feminist publishing house, Kali for Women (set up in 1984) and now steers Zubaan, a leading feminist imprint, set up in 2003. She has a long involvement in the women’s movement in India, and is an independent researcher and writer who writes and publishes widely on a range of issues to do with gender. Among her best known publications are Speaking Peace: Women’s Voices from Kashmir (edited), Partition: The Long Shadow (edited) and the award-winning oral history of Partition: The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (winner of the Oral History Book Association Award 2001 and the Nikkei Asia Award for Culture 2003). She is currently working on the life of a hijra friend of hers, Mona Ahmed. She is a recipient of several awards including the French Chevalier des Lettres et des Artes, the Nikkei Asia Award for Culture, the Goethe Medaille and the Padma Shri.
Join us for an inspiring talk with Urvashi Butalia as she unpacks the visual history of India’s women’s movement through the powerful archive of feminist posters.
The conversations will continue over tea/coffee after the talk. See you there!
warm regards,
Visual Arts Department