Public Program: Talk

・Summary
This talk positions the body as a locus of memory, and as witness, shaped by the psychosocial topography of Gujarat, India. Avni’s performance practice interrogates spaces charged with histories of violence and collective memory, employing the body as a medium to navigate the tensions between remembering and erasure, rupture and repair.
Within these sites— with contested narratives and shared silences—her work unfolds across public streets, classrooms, and stages, spaces where personal and collective histories converge. Through choreographic inquiry and embodied practice, Avni engages the body as both a site of inscription and a tool for resistance, mapping the intersections of trauma and resilience.
This evening offers a moment for collective reflection, drawing attention to the act of performance as a curatorial gesture—an intimate and public reckoning with history, memory, and the possibilities of connection and renewal, sometimes through unlearning movement.
(Avni Sethi)

*The talk will be conducted in English with consecutive interpretation into Japanese.

The above archived streaming is available on YouTube at the following link,

■Profile
Avni Sethi
Avni Sethi is an interdisciplinary practitioner with her primary concerns lying between cultures of violence, memory, space and the body.
Trained in multiple dance idioms, her performances are largely inspired by syncretic faith traditions and sites of contested narratives. She has been continually interested in exploring the relationship between intimate audiences and the performing body.
She conceptualised and designed, the Conflictorium, a Museum of Conflict (www.conflictorium.org) in Ahmedabad and Raipur city and Mehnat Manzil (www.mehnatmanzil.org), a Museum of work situated in Ahmedabad, Gujarat in 2013, 2022 and 2019 respectively.
She has been writing and speaking about the potential of small museums as a holding space for social justice processes and the necessity of building care based ecosystems.
She is currently nurturing ‘Ordo Performance Collaboratory’ (www.ordocollaboratory.com), a studio space that focuses on performance based experimentations.
She is the recipient of the Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice 2020-2022 by the Vera List Centre for Art and Politics. She currently lives and works in Ahmedabad, India.

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