The workshop was conducted by us (Inah and Kattya) founders of Crossmopollinate, in collaboration with Pranab Man Singh and Sagar Manandhar for the course Art Theory and Aesthetics X Studio Art. The workshop aimed to explore the intersection of transcultural studies, social art practice and urban transformation. This report provides an overview of the key discussions and activities conducted during the workshop, emphasizing the multidisciplinary glossary could be further expanded and worked upon.
The workshop’s primary objective was to extend the glossary of Urban Transformation that accommodated the diverse academic backgrounds of participants, including anthropology, transcultural studies, art history, fine arts, and geography. This workshop was specifically done with students in Fine Arts, that deal with urbanity in Kathmandu through their artistic practice.
To contextualize the workshop, we outlined the methodology employed in creating the glossary, emphasizing a collaborative, non-linear approach. Participants were tasked with contributing or extending the definitions of words from the Glossary of Urban Transformation, and subsequent discussions displayed a more comprehensive and an interconnected character. The glossary, hosted on the Obsidian platform, allowed for ongoing contributions, fostering a continually evolving repository of knowledge.
Within the given time of 10 minutes, the participants engaged in defining their selected terms. The words each group resonated the most, when dealing with the urban space through their artistic practices were: empathy, time, mundane, centre and periphery, and initiative. Group discussions provided diverse perspectives, and the discourse extended to exploring the manifestation of these concepts within the urban landscape. Students were also encouraged by Pranab and Sagar to think about definitions visually, thereby producing sketches, illustrations and diagrams complimenting their experiences of the chosen words.
The working definitions was added on to the Obsidian platform, which serves as a dynamic repository for the evolving glossary. Participants were encouraged to contribute content, encompassing text, images, and videos. This collaborative space facilitated a collective understanding of transcultural concepts and their applications to urban transformation.