IMAGINED HOMELAND

2 July 2017, 10.00 18.00

HOME, 2 Tony Wilson Place, First Street,
Manchester M15 4FN

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 Photograph taken by Malcom Hutcheson in remembrance of Ashraf
Masih. Pervaiz Masih holds the only remaining photograph of his
brother.

Imagined Homeland is curated by Alnoor Mitha - Senior

Research Fellow (Asian Cultures.

2017 marks the 70th anniversary of the partition of India into

India and Pakistan (including what later became Bangladesh).

Imagined Homeland will discuss the historical journeys that

formed the largest mass migration in human history, dividing
the country into a nationalist struggle with mass abduction and
savage sexual violence. It had a huge impact on
contemporary South Asian communities as well as its
international Diasporas and how global communities continue
to be fractured by the recent refugee crisis of the 21st
Century.

This event will see prominent speakers who have an interest

in South Asian culture reflect on Partitions on-going socio-
political influence 70 years after the event occurred.

Among the confirmed speakers are artists, historians and

award winning novelists and writers such as Professor
Yasmin Khan, Dilip Hiro, Shezad Dawood, Navtej Purewal,
Balraj Khanna. In a unique spin on the event, local poets
such as Yandass Ndlovu, Elmi Alvi, and Isaiah Hull will be
responding to the discussion as the event unfolds.

Imagined Homeland is a trailblazer of Asia Triennial

Manchester 2018, Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Dave Moutrey

Dave Moutrey is Director and Chief Executive of HOME
Manchester, a large purpose built cross art form venue that
opened in May 2015. HOME was formed from the merger of
Cornerhouse and Library Theatre Company in 2012, a project
conceived and led by Dave. Dave was formerly the Director of
Arts About Manchester (now All About Audiences).

Dave is also a member of the British Council International Arts
Advisory Group, the Creative Industries Federation National
Council and a trustee of the Abandon Normal Devices
Festival, regularly speaking on arts leadership and
management.

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Alnoor Mitha

Alnoor Mitha is a senior Research Fellow (Asian Cultures) and

Founding Artistic Director of the Asia Triennial Manchester at
Manchester Met University. His research is based on space,
people, identity, transnationalism, postcolonialism and the
journeys of South and East Asian diaspora.

In 2016, he curated Conceiving Space the fourth edition of

the Colombo Art Biennale, Sri Lanka. In 2018, he is co
curating a major exhibition by Anish Kapoor in Moss, Norway.

Mitha has co-edited numerous scholarly publications including

Triennial City: Localising Asian Art and Conflict and
Compassion, A Paradox of Difference in Contemporary Asian
Art.

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Yasmin Khan

Yasmin Khan is a British historian and writer, and Associate
Professor in British History, University of Oxford. Her work
focuses on the history of the British in India, the British
Empire, South Asian decolonization, refugees and the
aftermath of empire.

Her books include The Great Partition: the Making of India and
Pakistan (Yale University Press/Penguin India, 2007) and The
Raj at War: a people's history of India's Second World
War (Random House, 2015). She has written for the
Guardian, Statesman, Prospect and BBC History Magazines,
and has given talks internationally including in the USA, India,
Pakistan and UK.

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Yandass Ndlovu

Yandass is a performer from Manchester. She is studying
Dance and Performance at Arden School of Theatre, is part of
the Young Directors at the Royal Exchange Theatre and an
apprentice on the Future Leaders scheme with Global
Grooves. She also performed in FlexN Manchester in MIF,
Festival number (dance). She has also performed at the Royal
Exchange (Nothing, Brink, The Factory)

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Jenna Ashton

Dr Jenna Ashton is a Research Impact and Engagement
Manager at Manchester Met University. She is also Founder
and Creative Director of arts and heritage organisation Digital
Womens Archive North CIC (DWAN).

Jennas specialisms include digital feminisms, feminist
curatorial and archival practices, and methods of participatory
collaborative research. She is editor of two-volume
international publication Feminism and Museums:
Intervention, Disruption and Change (September 2017,
MuseumsEtc). Jennas current positions also include Global
Cultural Fellow at the Institute of International Cultural
Relations, University of Edinburgh, and Honorary Research
Fellow of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences, The
University of Manchester.

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Dilip Hiro

Of the 31 non-fiction books authored by Dilip Hiro, a London-
based author and journalist, eight are on South Asia. These
include Inside India Today; The Timeline History of India);
Apocalyptic Realm); and The Longest August: The Unflinching
Rivalry between India and Pakistan (2015). Reviewers in
America, Britain, India and Pakistan acclaimed the last title; it
became a best seller in India.

Dilips other areas of specialization are the Middle East,
Central Asia and Islamic affairs. He is a frequent contributor to
Tom.Dispatch.com, the online magazine of The Nation, the
oldest American magazine, and YaleGlobal online magazine
of Yale University.

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Shezad Dawood

Shezad Dawood was born in London in 1974 and trained at
Central St Martins and the Royal College of Art before
undertaking a PhD at Leeds Metropolitan University. Shezad
works across film, painting and sculpture to juxtapose discrete
systems of image, language, site and multiple narratives,
using the editing process as a method to explore meanings
and forms between film and painting. His practice often
involves collaboration; working with groups and individuals
across different territories to physically and conceptually map
far-reaching lines of enquiry.

Dawoods work has been exhibited internationally. Dawood is
a Jarman Award nominee (2012), and one of the winners of
the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2011).

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Elmi Ali

Elmi is a writer, performer, facilitator and director based in the
North West. He writes poetry, short fiction and for the stage.
His work has been received in venues across the country from
the Power House Library in Mosside to The British Library. His
latest work is published in Sable 15 and Critical Muslim 13
respectively. He facilitates Voicing It, a weekly Creative
Writing Lab at Contact Manchester and is associate editor at
Scarf Magazine.

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Anjum Malik

Anjum has written several original plays for radio, as well as
two series of an original Womans Hour drama, The
Interpreter. She also adapted Napoleon Rising, based on an
unperformed Anthony Burgess play, for Radio 3. She is
currently developing an original pilot script, Groom, following
participation in LFS Bootcamp. Anjum has also written for the
stage and was writer in residence for the Kali Theatre
Company. She is a lecturer at Manchester Met University and
a published poet. Before working as a writer, Anjum worked as
a policewoman and as a police interpreter.

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Tej Purewal

Dr. Navtej (Tej) Purewal is Reader in the Political Sociology of
South Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS), University of London. She is currently Deputy
Director of the South Asia Institute.

As well as teaching and supervising students working on a

range of social science topics related to South Asia, Tej has
published widely on gender, popular religion, social exclusion,
and state policies. She is currently working on a forthcoming
joint-authored book on popular religion and shrine cultures
across India and Pakistan.

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Balraj Khanna

Balraj Khanna is one of Indias most renowned artists in

Europe today. Khanna has also produced a considerable
volume of fiction, most recent titled Line of Blood, which
launched in London at the end of May.

Khanna won the Winifred Holtby Prize in 1984 for Nation of

Fools, which was adjudged one of the Best 200 Novels in
English since 1950 in The Modern Library by Carmen Callil
and Colm Toibin. As an artist, he has had several prestigious
exhibitions and has been compared with Paul Klee and Joan
Miro.

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Isaiah Hull

19-year-old Isaiah Hull is a writer and performer from Old

Trafford, Manchester and is one of the Roundhouse and BBC
Radio 1Xtras Words First finalists. Isaiah has been a member
of Manchesters young writers collective Young Identity since
2010.

Led by senior poets, Young Identity taught Isaiah to translate

his feelings into words through workshops at Manchesters
charity-run Contact theatre. Isaiahs first slam poetry
performance was at WORDCUP by Apples and Snakes.
Isaiah is currently enjoying the freedom to work on his art. His
performances have taken him up and down the country, from
London to the Beatnik Festival in Glasgow.

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John McGrath

John E. McGrath is the Artistic Director of Manchester
International Festival. Appointed to the role in 2015, John was
previously Artistic Director of National Theatre Wales, which
he launched in 2009 achieving an international reputation for
large-scale site-specific work, digital innovation, international
collaboration and extraordinary community involvement.

John has worked as a theatre director in New York, London
and was Artistic Director of Contact Theatre in Manchester
from 1999 to 2008. Awards include the National Endowment
for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) Cultural
Leadership Award (2005) and an Honorary Doctorate from the
Open University (2015).

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This event is funded by MMU and supported by Manchester
International Festival 2017 and HOMEMcr.

Imagined Homeland coordinated by Aniqah Mitha

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