The presentation and webinar will be available on Zoom at 3:10 p.m. EST (Registration required). You will receive the zoom link to attend via email once you register.

If you miss this presentation/webinar, fear not, this will be archived and available on our website post the event.

Mainstream South Asian media uncritically features upper-caste/class, Eurocentric coded bodies and embraces models of development that recreate systemic and global inequities. Creating alternative images, worldbuilding, and stories of South Asian futurisms can help us interrogate these assumptions.

In this presentation and workshop, artist Srutika Sabu will detail her process of creating her digital painting series “Neo-Alapphuzha” which attempts to imagine South Asian futurism that is localized, sustainable, liberating, and feature dark-skinned femme bodies living their best lives. During the workshop, participants will be guided through an ideation and worldbuilding exercise using frameworks from Indigenous epistemology and transnational feminism. Ultimately, participants will gain a greater understanding of how storytelling is a valuable tool for research, knowledge creation and future envisioning.

Srutika Sabu

(she/they) is an artist, a storyteller and a scholar. Her creative practice is the fruit of an interdisciplinary academic background in medicine and transnational feminism. She is motivated by the profound belief that storytelling can serve as valuable tools of knowledge production by telling us fundamental and empathetic truths about the world. Aesthetically, her work draws from her South Indian roots and her love for shoujo manga imagery. Conceptually, her work explores epistemological hegemonies, development, casteism, globalization and post- colonialism.