Travelling Cinema : Entertainment for Rural India

[Team]

TRAVELLING CINEMA : ENTERTAINMENT FOR RURAL India


For about six decades now, traveling tent cinema companies accompany Jatras- annual religious fairs which begin in rural Maharashtra, western India after the crop gathering season ends in October. Traveling with these fairs, not very far from the cinema capital of India- Mumbai, the tent talkies hawk an eclectic mix of films- regional language films, Bollywood blockbusters and even dubbed Hollywood flicks as they travel across the rural landscape.


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Amit and SHIRLEY are bringing THEIR work on the traveling tent cinemas to Delhi again. Their installation opens at Max Mueller Bhavan on Friday, 15th February 2013 till 25 the Februray.


SHIRLEY HAS GONE BACK BUT Amit is still there for tete a tete.


Theartists:

Photographer Amit Madheshiya and researcher and filmmaker Shirley Abraham have been working in collaboration on the traveling tentcinemas of Maharashtra since 2008. This work is supported by India Foundationfor the Arts, Bangalore, Goethe Institut New Delhi and the Cluster ofExcellence ‘Asia Europe in a Global Context', Heidelberg. They narrate thestory of the cinemas through varied research and artistic interventions- stillimages, conversations, collages, participatory observation and archivalresearch, and is currently shaping into a film narrative.

They have presented the project throughlectures, workshops and exhibitions across festivals and universities includingthe Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Hong Kong Art Fair, Asian CulturalTyphoon in Tokyo, University of Colorado and Centre for Asian Studies inBoulder, LUISS University Rome, Asian Modernities and Traditions Programat the University of Leiden, Maharashtra Conference in Bratislava, GlobalTheatre Histories Program at Munich University, Erasmus University Rotterdam,Cluster of Excellence ‘Asia Europe in a Global Context' in Heidelberg,Hyderaba d University, Dakshinachitra in Chennai, SNDT University in Pune,MargHumanities in Delhi, Film Studies Department at Jadavpur University,Hyderaba d University, Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and at IndiaFoundation for the Arts in Bangalore. They also conducted a workshop ontraveling media in Asia and Europe at the University of Trier, and recently, onethnographic photography at the south Asia Institut in Heidelberg.

The work has been part of solo and groupshows worldwide. For his work, Amit won the World Press Photo, WorldPhotography Award and the Humanity Photo Award.