This episode features a conversation about the "New Currents Symposium," a special event at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam on October 29, 2026. Emerging out of the ongoing project New Currents: Indian Ocean Futures, the upcoming event has been designed to explore the shared histories and futures of the Indian Ocean region through panel discussions, film screenings, and artworks. The four guests are all involved in the forthcoming symposium as organizers, artists, curators, or presenters. Setareh Noorani is an architect, curator, and researcher at Het Nieuwe Instituut; Priya Swami is Curator of Globalisation and South Asia at the Wereldmuseum; Sarojini Lewis and Lou Mo are artists who have both contributed to the New Currents project (here and here), and they will also join the "Ports As Portals" panel discussed in this episode.
The symposium is a public event, and listeners are strongly encouraged to attend. Tickets are available here: https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/new-currents-symposium-tickets-1995656973730?aff=oddtdtcreator
The audio clip at the end of the episode, in lieu of the usual outro music, was provided by Lou Mo. Credit: Bitter Sounds: A Potential Rehearsal - Arthur Yuen Po Hang, Mohamed Gueye and Xuandi Zhang. Bitter Sounds is a series of Afro-Asian musical experiments initiated by Musquiqui Chihying and Lou Mo.
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