The Kochi Biennale Foundation has joined hands with the academic community Backwaters Collective to launch the latest edition of the commune’s conference on metaphysics and politics.
Mayor Soumini Jain inaugurated the four-day event here on Friday, commending the coming together of art and academia.
Ms. Jain also received the first copy of India and the Unthinkable , a compilation of the discussions and findings from the last Backwaters Collective conferences edited by scholars Vinay Lal and Roby Rajan. Swami Rithambarananda of the Sivagiri Mutt released the book.
“The work is the first of many that tries to understand how the spiritual, intellectual, cultural and philosophical traditions and resources of Indic civilisation can be deployed to think ethically about today’s politics and help in seeking answers to seemingly intractable conflicts,” said Prof. Lal.
“The Collective’s collaboration with KBF is but an extension of this logic, which seeks to integrate the visions of different schools of thought with both ‘Eastern Reason’ as expounded by reformative thinkers like Sree Narayana Guru and the best of the Western academic canon,” he said. The sentiment was echoed by political psychologist Ashis Nandy. The discussion session saw presentations by Prof. Lal besides KBF representatives Riyas Komu and Amar Kanwar on the roughly concurrent rise and growth of the Kochi Muziris Biennale and the Backwaters Collective.
