Mamta G Sagar

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA under Curated Artistic Engagements, will create a series of public and private interactive poetry sessions in different parts of Bangalore, to explore the psychogeography of the city through multilingual poetic exercises. Mamta G Sagar is the Coordinator for this project. 

Mamta G Sagar is a renowned Kannada poet, whose areas of specialisations are comparative literature, translation studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, Kannada literature and cultural discourse. Mamta did her PhD on contemporary women’s poetry in Kannada and Hindi, and she has taught at the Hyderabad University and Bangalore University, before joining as a Professor at Srishti Manipal Institute of Arts, Design and Technology, Bangalore in 2016. Her poems and research has been published internationally, and she has lectured and performed poetry in different parts of the world. Mamta’s poems have been translated into many Indian and foreign languages, and she is the winner of various awards and honours, including Sanchi Honnamma Kavya Prashasti (2019) and Bhashabharathi Translation Award (2019). Mamta has been involved in activating discourses on poetry in urban spaces through translations and curations. Given Mamta’s experience she is best placed to be the Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

The project will implement curated events around poetry - in primarily Kannada, and a few other languages - to activate the city of Bangalore throughout the year. The series of events would include Kaavyaagaara - poetry workshops; Odatta - site-specific poetry-writing; Kaavya Sanje - poetry readings at public spaces such as metro stations, studio galleries, activist spaces, parks, bookshops, pubs and cafeterias; Mane Kaavya - poetry at private spaces such as people’s homes; Pada Sanchaara - poetry walks; presentation of protest poems; and Kaavya Shaale - poetry with school children, Kaavyaarogya – with health workers and IT Kaavya - with IT professionals. There will also be sessions on translations called Anuvada. The potential collaborators of this project will be 1Shanthiroad Studio Gallery, Sangama and Art in Transit. 

This project derives its energy from Kaavya Sanje, (meaning Poetry Evenings) which was started by the Project Coordinator in 2013 to connect young Kannada poets to worlds of poetry within and beyond the Kannada literary universe. It has evolved as a multilingual poetry community that connect people through poetry as a compelling tool to voice socio-political concerns. Building on the momentum of Kaavya Sanje, this project will mobilise the Kannada, non-Kannada and also ‘not-so-Kannada’ communities through the poetry activities. 

The locations in the city that have been identified for site-visits include:
a) KR Market and Lalbagh, b) Tipu Palace and Fort, c) the Bull Temple and Gandhi Bazaar, d) Sayeda Siadani Bibi Dargah, Mastan Saheb Dargah and Dharmaraya Swamy Temple (Karaga), e) Sankey tank and Ulsoor lake, and f) places in colonial Bangalore. 

Various curatorial activities have different frequencies as unfolding events throughout the year. There will be six site-visits, once in two months. Six events of poetry at public places, such as metro stations, will also be once in two months. Three sessions poetry at people’s houses will be once in four months. Two poetry walks, one in Cubbon Park about Vachana poetry and one in the Purple Line of Bangalore Metro, will be once in six months. There are other activities that will happen once or twice during the project period, such as presenting protest poems, inviting school children from two schools to any two of the site-visits, and poetry workshops with health workers and IT professionals. As a part of the public events, there will be five invited young poets who write in Kannada, along with five poets who have already been part of Kaavya Sanje. The invited poets will be from diverse backgrounds, which bring different experiences of the city, who write in different languages. 

The outcomes of the project are public and private interactive poetry sessions, an exhibition of poetry installations, poetry videos and poetry performances, a book of poems along with a book launch, and a digital book of photographs of the project. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be audio-visual documentation of the project, a digital book of photographs of the project and a soft copy of the book of poems.

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Project 560 programme in the way it attempts to poetically map the psychogeography of Bangalore, bringing together different linguistic constituencies of poets in the city which is often at the heart of controversies around language and belonging for the ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’. 

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This project is made possible with support from BNP Paribas India Foundation.