Mar 29 2025 to Apr 06 2025 11 a.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

Exhibition Opening: Saturday, 29 March, 12:30pm
Exhibition Timings: 11am – 8pm
Exhibition on show until: 6 April

Walkthroughs:
Saturday, 29 March, 3:30pm & 5:30pm
Sunday, 30 March, 3:30pm & 5:30pm
Wednesday, 2 April, 4pm
Friday, 4 April, 4pm
Saturday, 5 April, 3:30pm, 5:30pm & 7pm
Sunday, 6 April, 3:30pm, 5:30pm & 7pm

Inaugural Panel: Saturday, 29 March, 11am | Uma Chakravarti, Du. Saraswathi, V. Geetha, Diya Deviah & Ammel Sharon

Pakshi Purana: Exploring Masculinity (Theatre): Sunday, 30 March, 11am | Du. Saraswathi

Workshops:
History in your Hands: Archiving for Everyone
Friday, 4 April, 6pm | Saturday, 5 April, 11:30am
(By registration only.)

The Art of Visual Storytelling: A Hands-on Workshop on Poster Design
Wednesday, 2 April, 6pm | Sunday, 6 April, 11:30am
(By registration only.)

The NLS Archives’ Maps of Memory exhibition displays archival fragments and glimpses of personal memory to reconstruct joyful utopian worlds that feminists began building across South Asia in the mid-20th century. It invites us to reflect on key questions: How do we remember social movements? How do we archive friendships, solidarities, and resistance?

Featuring Dr. Uma Chakravarti’s collection from the NLS Archives, the exhibition offers a visual, cinematic, and scholarly journey through the people’s movements in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Through posters, films, and groundbreaking historical research, it invites visitors to engage with the intertwined narratives of friendships and struggles for democratic rights across South Asia.

The exhibition curators see the archives not as a repository of passive records but as a site for conversation and world-building. Drawing on our conversations with Uma Chakravarti, we sought out the people behind the references and welcomed new and less-known material into the exhibition.

Maps of Memory explores four interconnected themes: Archiving Feminist Histories, Friendships Beyond Borders, Democratic Participation and Civil Liberties, and Counterpublics and the Classroom. These themes reflect Chakravarti’s lifelong commitment to documenting and analysing feminist lives, democratic struggles, and the innovative pedagogy in postcolonial India.

The exhibition will be hosted at the BIC Gallery Space, extending into the second-floor foyer. Select materials will be displayed in stairways and the ground-floor foyer.

Curators: Ammel Sharon and Diya Deviah
Design and Art Direction: Diya Deviah
Video Editors: Bavana Gone and Vibhav Saraf
Animator: Keerti Jain

The NLS Law and Society Archives: Since 1988, the National Law School of India University in Bengaluru (NLSIU) has played a pivotal role in shaping the legal education landscape in India. In line with its research and teaching priorities, the NLSIU established the NLS Law and Society Archives in 2024 as a multimedia repository documenting the legal profession, legal education, and social efforts that have shaped the legal field in independent India. Part of the Archives’ mission is to contribute to informed public discussion by making available rare records of independent India’s history from the collections of individuals and institutions. We are delighted to bring the Uma Chakravarti Collection to the BIC in March and April 2025.

This exhibition is made possible by the NLS Archives, in collaboration with the BIC, QAMRA Archival Project, feminist collectives, and scholars across South Asia. Special thanks to the artists, filmmakers, and researchers whose work enriches this collection.

Artists

Uma Chakravarti
Historian, Filmmaker & Activist
Born in 1941, Dr. Uma Chakravarti is a historian, feminist, filmmaker, civil liberties activist and teacher. Since the 1980s, she has played a key role in recovering and documenting histories—both in print and film—of pioneering women activists and extraordinary women’s lives from the late 19th century onward, shaping the field of Women’s Studies in India. Her work spans field research, historical analysis, and active engagement with national developments, alongside documenting human rights violations and the lives of incarcerated women across India. She taught for many years at Miranda House, Delhi, and her students have since become feminist writers, lawyers, and filmmakers in their own right.

The Uma Chakravarti Collection emerges from a collective commitment to rewriting historical narratives by recovering women’s voices and envisioning feminist worlds. Describing herself as an intuitive archivist, she has preserved ephemera from across South Asia, creating an invaluable resource. Her collection invites continuous exploration, offering new ways to reimagine democracy in the subcontinent.

Diya Deviah
Curator
Diya Deviah is the curator of the Maps of Memory Exhibition. She teaches Law at the National Law School of India University, and is Co-Director of The Writing Centre at NLSIU