Sruti Bala is Associate Professor at the Dept. of Theatre Studies of the University of Amsterdam, where she currently co-ordinates the MA Theatre Studies programme. She is affiliated to the  Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis and is a member of the ASCA advisory board.

Sruti's research interests are at the intersections of performance and politics, which has taken shape in specific research projects on nonviolent protest, participatory art, artistic activism, feminist and postcolonial/decolonial literary and cultural theories and translation.

She co-ordinates a five-year NWO-funded research project in co-operation with the University of Curaçao on the cultural practices of citizenship in the Dutch Caribbean. See project website here.

She is an active member of the collective International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India).

Sruti studies Indian percussion (Tabla) with Niti Ranjan Biswas.

Teach-in on Palestine/Israel

History is not context, it's reality.

Palestine is a feminist issue

Tue 5 Dec, 15.00-16.30hrs. 

New Location: De Brug, 4^th floor, Roeterseilandcampus/Amsterdam, REC C/D 

ASCA Website

Speakers: 

Khadeja Ibrahim and Joharah Baker (MIFTAH, Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy); 

Dr. Layal Ftouni, Assistant Professor Gender Studies and Critical Theory, Utrecht University; 

Prof. Dr. Sarah Bracke, Professor of Sociology of Gender and Sexuality, University of Amsterdam 

Moderator: Sinin Nakhle, PhD candidate, Media Studies, UvA 

Art + Sacrifice zone + biopolitics: Who has the right to live?

Activism, Performativity and necropolitics in the Chilean environmental crisis

Guest lecture by Dr. Paulina Bronfman

organised by ASCA Research group Art, Activism and Conflict

[moderated by Martina Flores Mendeville & Florence Evans (PhD Candidates ASCA)] 

Time & Location: 16^th November | 16-18h at University Theater | Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, 1012 CP Amsterdam. 

During the last 20 years, Chilean artists have been active thinkers in reflecting on the environmental crisis in Chile and its political dimension. The “sacrifice zones” are characterized by high levels of contamination produced by the presence of heavy metals such as lead, copper, and arsenic, which significantly exceed the levels recorded in other regions of the national territory.  In Chile, the expression “sacrifice zone” began to designate the same idea of both, the geographical location and the communities affected by the environmental impacts, identifying the concept with the denounce of contamination in the places they inhabit.  ‘Sacrifice zones” are places where the devastation has direct implications in the full exercise of the fundamental rights of people: the right to life, health, education, work, food and housing. The environmental damage has resulted in a situation of vulnerability and impoverishment of the communities. This talk will explore diverse cases studies of artistic activism as repertoire of political action in Chile, analysing cases from art, performance and music, that promote reflexion and resistance on the environmental crisis produces by the sacrifice zones.

Dr. Paulina Bronfman is a Postdoctoral Researcher of the ANILLO ANID Project “Gender, Biopolitics and Creation. Cultural and political productions of women for new forms in gender relations” at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile. She hold a Master's and a PhD in Education Studies at the University of York, United Kingdom. Her work explores the intersections between Performance, Citizenship  and Cultural Studies. Dr. Bronfman is author of the book, Performance, ciudadania y activismo en Chile (Editorial Oso Liebre). Currently she is working on her second book: Scenic and performative practices as an ecological strategy in Chile, focused on environmental artistic activism, funded by the Chilean Ministry of Cult by the Chilean Ministry of Culture and Arts.

Current PhD supervisions

Florence Evans: Art, Activism, and Memory in Buenos Aires, 1995-2003 (co-promoter: Dr. Boris Noordenbos)

Emily Shin-Jie Lee: Artist-in-Residencies: Dwelling Spaces of Art and Politics (promoter: Prof. Dr. Margriet Schavemaker)

Ariane Gros: From the 19th Century August to the Contemporary Joker: The Cultural Figure of the Clown and its Political Significance in Arts, Media and Public Space(s) (co-promoters: Prof. Dr. Peter Marx and Prof. Dr. Stephen Packard, University of Cologne)

Julia Mullié: at this moment stanley brouwn is at the distance of x feet from this point (promoter: Prof. Dr. Margriet Schavemaker)