If you happen to cruise up and down the Hooghly river (as the Ganga is known on its final stretch to the sea), you will not only find historic buildings and temples but also find homesteads that have been around the river banks for centuries and most likely wonder about their history, the families who lived here or may have acquired it from the earlier owners, and the changes which might have been made to suit the choices of the successive generations. Or take for instance, the old homes in north Kolkata and their incredible storehouse of antique furniture, statues and other artifacts, each with a tale to tell.

 

 

 

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For a country like India, where villages and towns and cities have been around for centuries, where many families can trace back their roots over generations, the discovery of domestic heritage can be an interesting chapter, but has been little explored.

And if you want to know more about the subject, joining an international webinar titled ‘Domestic Heritages: Memories and Micro-narratives’ may provide you with direction.

Organised by INTACH Hooghly Chapter in collaboration with Indian Museum, Kolkata, it will be held on August 8 and 9, 2020.

According to a note on the webinar, it proposes to ‘critically engage with domestic space which is a site where the domestic past is an unconscious chequered representation of domestic present’.

Scholars have been documenting ‘interpretive’ and ‘perceptive’ responses to domestic heritage and studying their process of transmission ‘through generations of layered palimpsests’, where individuals and families have been acting as the agents of transmission in myriad ways. 

A section of the webinar will be devoted to micro-narratives of individuals and their shared collective experiences. There will also be presentations from people who are already working to preserve domestic heritages.

On the second day, national and international experts will offer their perspectives on the subject.

For more details, check here

Note: Registration closes on Aug 3, 2020.