OUR STORY
Vision
Disappearing Dialogues is a collaboration of minds, passions, artistic spaces whose purpose is to add value and assist the preservation of existing heritage, culture and environment of regions which are slowly, but surely, disintegrating. Community engagements involving locals help us to document and disseminate knowledge to a wider audience through exhibitions and interactions in public spaces.
As a collective, the work is at three levels – community, institutional, and public. A sense of the culture and heritage is gleaned by interacting within a rural-urban interface. Institutionally, we work and continue to do so with schools and other learning environments bringing about greater awareness. We also engage in the public sphere through trans-disciplinary practice, interactive exhibitions, workshops and open forums. Disappearing Dialogues aims to bring to prominence the assets held within the culture and heritage of India, especially those which appear to be knocking on the doors of extinction.
Our intention is to facilitate the opening of more avenues of interaction bridging generations and ethnicities. Indigenous archives, immersive research programmes, educational outreaches, cultural development programs, festivals, installations are all on the anvil.
Do continue to read to learn more about the team behind Disappearing Dialogues.
COLLECTIVE
lead members
NOBINA GUPTA
Founder-Director, Disappearing Dialogues
A staunch believer in socially engaged art practice, Nobina Gupta conceived the Disappearing Dialogues (dD) collective, which aims to initiate interdisciplinary interactions. In the past few years curating dD
as Founder Director, it has developed into a dynamic platform engaging different communities, institutions, social groups and generations through interactive artworks, research, documentation, community collective activities reflecting on historical, cultural, social and environmental losses, sediments and memories intrinsic to a city or a region.
An alumnus of Kala Bhavan, her work has been showcased widely both in India and elsewhere. The need to collaboratively work within socio-spatial realities with the community came to her while researching for the initial dD project, which was a part of the Earth Art Project, co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation, in the Changthang valley in Ladakh. Initiating co-creation, her desire is to break norms and boundaries to explore and disseminate research and community based learnings, focusing on process, practice and everyday life.
SAPTARSHI MITRA
With a background in in Architecture (CEPT Ahmedabad) and Urban Planning (UCL London) has worked in India, Spain, United Kingdom and Myanmar. He been engaged in a variety of interdisciplinary projects that lie at the intersections of space, culture and society – dealing with individuals, private/public sectors and the community. Currently he is part of an interdisciplinary design practice ‘The Appropriate Alternative’ lead an NGO named ‘Sustained Actions for Value and Environment’, national and international collectives that work at the intersection of Architecture, Planning, Community-based Development and embedded Arts practice.
ANTARA GUPTA
Student of Sociology and Anthropology, usually art-ing and sometimes dancing. Completed her Bachelors from Ashoka University in '20, presently doing a thesis in her department. She is Content-Editor for Jot the Undergraduate Student-led Soc-Anth Journal that released its first issue this year. Other than being involved in other department related activities at her University, she has been engaged with DD for sometime now. Her work can be found on different pages of this website (stop motion film on yourcovidstory, DD 2020 calendar, videos, and other DD content) along with this website itself.
members
SUCHONA BASU
Doing her undergraduate in Gokhale Memorial Girl's College (affiliated with the University of Calcutta) in Mathematics. Trained in Bharatnatyam and under the Mamata Shankar School of Dance since a very young age; she is an immensely skilled dancer. She desires to use her interests and art form to reach out to people. She enjoys performing and teaching, while caring for those less privileged than her, and is usually caught choreographing delightfully graceful pieces.
SUBARNA PAL
Engineer and Artist with a quirky personality. Working at corporate through the week, indulging in sports throughout weekend.
SEJUTI MALAKAR
A Textile Design student, studying in NIFT. Being trained in art, from childhood, she has always been passionate about it and has developed a knack and curiosity for the field of Design. She enjoys learning through social interactions, gaining insights from different cultural communities.
SREEJA BASU
Student of Mass Communication and Journalism at Bhawanipur College, Kolkata, she is a passionate and adept photographer. Her work has been showcased at a variety of platforms including AJIO fashionweek and other festivals & exhibitions. She has even judged events at such a young age and continues to photograph elements of everyday that catch her eye as well as, personal shoot requests. She is either behind the camera or singing at local gigs.
NIMISHA MONDAL
Student of Accounts in Sivanath Sastri College (affiliated with the University of Calcutta). She is inclined towards human interaction based work and design, while being skilled at both. Her skill as a young facilitator lies most strongly in her ease of interactions with a variety of crowds. Fun and approachable, she manages to order the chaos with her organization skills while lightening up tense participants and getting them brim with excitement and laughter.
COLLABORATORS
RAJAT MALLICK
A professional musician and a music teacher. With years of experiences as a Music Therapist has been working with special children and persons with Dementia for Alzheimer’s & Related Disorders and Cancer patients. Focusing on Sound and Music In Education building and working with many different types of musical instruments, he helps people to find music in everything around.
DEVYANI SULTANIA
She holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism and Mass Communication. While she secretly dreams of travelling the world to capture sunsets, you'll find her roaming the packed streets of Kolkata in search of the best Chinese food ever. She loves talking about sunsets, chai, restaurants and shoes!
DHRUBA DASGUPTA
With an educational background in rural development and community management, is primarily a conservation worker with a special focus on wetland ecosystems. Her current area of work is the East Kolkata Wetlands, with which she has been associated for two decades with Dr. Dhrubajyoti Ghosh. She is project director of Society for Creative Opportunities and Participatory Ecosystems (SCOPE), a non-profit that works to facilitate conservation in these wetlands. She is also an environmental writer and specialises in writing on climate change especially in ecologically challenged areas.
OUR SUPPORTERS
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