Berlin Biennale Special—Sarnath Banerjee: Critical Imagination Deficit Lecture III: Other People's Nostalgia
As part of 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
Visit only per appointment {{exhibition.opening_hours.fromTo}}
{{day.day$ | formatEvent}}
{{event.event_times}}
{{day.day$ | formatEvent}}
{{event.event_times}}
{{event.event_times}}
{{day.day$ | formatEvent}}
{{event.event_times}}
Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin
Limited capacity. Advance registration required. Please register here.
Entrance starts at 5.30pm.
The event will take place in the Studio in the front building of KW Institute for Contemporary Art. KW’s Studio is currently not barrier-free. A staircase with 15 steps and railings leads up to the Studio. Please send us an email at least three days in advance to the event to [email protected] to discuss potential accessibility options.
A barrier-free restroom is located on the 4th floor and is accessible via the elevator. The elevator is located in the courtyard on the left side between Café Bravo and the main entrance to KW.
Seating: Chairs with backrests will be provided.
Sensory stimuli: The event space is darkened.
Language: The event will be held in English. There is no translation.
S Hackescher Markt and Oranienburger Straße
U Rosenthaler Platz
Through his drawing-based lectures, Sarnath Banerjee explores the intersection between comics and theatre. When a comic book is staged well, it can produce unexpected experiences—melancholy, unease, joy, longing, and disquiet. Through these picto-textual performances, Banerjee seeks to record the emotional history of our times. Using ordinary micro-encounters that arise from geographical and cultural dislocation, he aims to explore the spontaneous experiences that emerge when specificities meet and modernities collide. A section of his work addresses the poorly understood political and social rifts between the diaspora and the newly arrived.
Banerjee believes that performativity is at the heart of comic-making. In comics, text and pictures, seldom explain each other; rather, they are in opposition. This creates something entirely uncanny, often beyond the imagination of the creator. As with theatre, makers can rarely predict the psychological states their work will evoke. While writing a comic, the author performs a place, a city, people, and their lived and un-lived fantasies. These stories are Banerjee’s way of coming to terms with the panic of the foreign and the cold dread of home.
Sarnath Banerjee, *1972 in Burdwan, India. Places of belonging: Delhi. Book: Doab Dil, 2018.