Date:02/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/02/stories/2009010257600200.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Tracing their roots back via oceanic culture

Staff Reporter

A digital exhibition will be organised as part of diaspora meet

It will be held at Chennai Trade Centre, Nandambakkam, from January 7 to January 9
IGNCA had conducted cultural meets on themes such as coolie migration, gypsies displacement

CHENNAI: The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi, will conduct a digital exhibition on ‘Oceanic Culture of India’ in Chennai from January 7 to January 9.

Addressing press persons here on Wednesday, Suresh Kumar Pillai, head of Diaspora programme, IGNCA, said that the exhibition will be organised as part of the Indian Diaspora cultural meet, which would be held in Puducherry between January 2 and January 6. The oceanic culture of India was born out of cultural exchange in port cities. The exhibition at Chennai Trade Centre, Nandambakkam, being held as part of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention, organised by the Union Ministry for Overseas Indian Affairs, would feature changes in the port and harbour, navigation and maritime activities, and lifestyles and artistic practices in the city.

The digital exhibition would also have photographs of the outreach programme that helped several diaspora members to locate their cultural home in the country, he said.

On the programme, V. Raghurama Ayyar, advisor of IGNCA, said that the diaspora programme was conceived as an effort to bring out the movement of the people, their shared resource management, and linguistic and artistic achievements from an ethno-anthropological and historical perspective.

The cultural meet to be organised in Puducherry would comprise a seminar and performance of cultural troupes from across the country.

IGNCA had earlier conducted two such cultural meets on themes such as coolie migration and displacement of gypsies.