Following an online screening and Q&A with artist Subash Thebe Limbu in 2022, we are delighted to present an in-person screening of Ningwasum (2021) and Ladhamba Tayem; Future Continuous (2023), followed by a live Q&A. Book your free place.
The screening (55 mins) will be followed by a discussion and Q&A led by Nicole Thiara where Subash will discuss how his work draws on and develops Indigenous Futurism as well as Adivasi Futurism.
Ningwasum (2021) is a Yakthung science fiction documentary film/video-work narrated by Miksam, a time traveller from a future Indigenous Nation. The film follows two time travellers, Miksam and Mingsoma, played by Subin Limbu and Shanta Nepali respectively, in the Himalayas weaving indigenous folk stories, culture, climate change and science fiction. The film explores notions of time, space and memory, and how realities and the sense of now could be different for different communities. Drawing from Adivasi Futurism and inspired by Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurism, Ningwasum imagines a future from an Indigenous perspective where they have agency, technology, sovereignty and also their indigenous knowledge, culture, ethics and storytelling still intact.
The plot of Ladhamba Tayem; Future Continuous (2023) depicts a conversation between two indigenous figures from different historical timelines, the first a real 18th century Yakthung warrior called Kangsore fighting the colonial army, and the other an astronaut and time traveler from the distant future. They discuss the space-time continuum from their perspectives, and in doing so, ask the viewers — who exist between the past and future — to investigate their own relationship to the passage of time. The time traveller indicates what the future might look like for us or possibilities we want to strive for, while the warrior reminds us of the fight against colonialism and struggles we shall overcome.
In the future, the Indigenous nationalities will have created a technique called thakthakma – which literally means to ‘weave handloom’, a term inspired by our ancestors’ weaving practice – a technique of entering different timelines or in other words weaving time. So, Subash thinks of his works as weaving stories that are not linear but intricately interwoven. And along the same vein, this work plays with the idea of time as not something rigid but ductile or weavable, which in turn paves the way for questions like how we might want to weave the future.
This event is part of the third series of CADALFEST and organised in collaboration with Formations and the Bonington Gallery. CADALFEST (Celebrating Adivasi and Dalit Arts and Literature Festival) is an international festival series dedicated to the writing and performance arts by writers whose work creatively resists caste discrimination and social exclusion in India: Dalit Adivasi Text.
Happening in Nottingham during the time of this event, we recommend visiting the exhibition Kolam (கோலம்) that has been curated by Raghavi Chinnadurai at Primary, Nottingham. This exhibition explores themes connected to our event, and also features Osheen Siva who exhibited at Bonington Gallery in Spring 2024.
Image: Subash Thebe Limbu, NINGWASUM 2021, video still. Courtesy of the artist.
Subash Thebe Limbu (he/him) is a Yakthung (Limbu) artist from Yakthung Nation (Limbuwan) from what we currently know as Eastern Nepal. He works with sound, film, music, performance, painting and podcast. His Yakthung name is ᤋᤠᤱᤛᤠᤱ Tangsang (Sky).
Subash has MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins (2016), BA in Fine Art from Middlesex University (2011), and Intermediate in Fine Art from Lalit Kala Campus, Kathmandu. His works are inspired by socio-political issues, resistance and science/speculative fiction. Notion of time, climate change, and indigeneity or Adivasi Futurism as he calls it, are recurring themes in his works.
Subash is the co-founding member of Yakthung Cho Sangjumbho (Yakthung Art Society) and Haatemalo Collective. Based in Newa Nation (Kathmandu) and London. Follow Subash on Instagram.
Manish Harijan is a Nepal born artist who lives in Sheffield, UK. He was the recipient of the NAE Open Future Exhibition Prize in 2023, and the resulting exhibition, Untouchable Utopia, is currently showing at New Art Exchange until 11 January 2025.
The son of a shoemaker from the so-called lower caste or Dalit in Nepal, Manish questions the injustices inflicted upon minorities and the lived experiences of vulnerable populations in all societies around the world. His work traverses East and West, casting iconic images from religion to pop culture, smoothly embedding them in one canvas to create bold, beautiful and thought-provoking paintings. Inspired by Nepali art traditions of Thangka and Paubha, Manish also borrows styles from graphic novels, especially manga and popular superhero comics.
Manish’s compositions reference a variety of subjects from social issues of caste discrimination to art history, merging local stories with the global, fairy tales with current news pieces, mythology with facts — questioning both the portrayal and the portrayed. In 2012, for his first solo exhibition at Siddhartha Art Gallery in Kathmandu, Manish brought together these themes challenging the status quo of tradition, hierarchy, religion and beliefs in Nepal. Unfortunately, the gallery was vandalised and Manish was sent death threats and accused of being anti-Hindu for portraying Hindu gods in superhero costumes. The exhibition was shut down and a court cases were filed; UNESCO issued a press release to support the artist’s freedom of expression.
Deeply affected and saddened by the state of affairs, Manish moved to the UK, where he enrolled in a Master of Fine Arts programme at Sheffield Hallam University. While at University, he redoubled his commitment to explore the rights of marginalised people through art, participating in art projects that gave voice to the rights of populations that are vulnerable, stateless and at high-risk. He graduated in 2019 and was awarded the Dianne Willcocks Lifelong Learning award.
Manish is one of the artists whose paintings has been shortlisted and acquisitions for the UK’s Government Art Collection 2020/21. His works have also been exhibited at Welt Museum in Vienna, Museum of Communication in The Hague, Nepal Art Council in Kathmandu, Yorkshire Art Space in Sheffield, India Art Fair in New Delhi, CKU Copenhagen in Denmark, October Gallery in London, ROSL Gallery in London, Bloc Project Sheffield, Artist’s Journey #3 in the UK and Solo show at Yorkshire art space gallery 2022 at Sheffield UK. Besides paintings, Manish also experiments with installations, sculptures and multimedia. He works at his studio in Yorkshire Art Space
Neeraj Bunkar is a PhD Scholar at the Department of Humanities at Nottingham Trent University with a specific interest in Caste, Dalit, Rajasthani folklore, Oral History and Cinema. He is researching Rajasthan-based Hindi cinema from the Dalit standpoint. He published, ‘Spring Thunder: Adivasi Resistance for ‘Jal, Jangal, Jameen’’ (2022) and the book review, ‘Subalternity at the Centre: A Young Diary Demands Radical Change’ (2024) the Economic and Political Weekly. He regularly contributes to platforms such as Forward Press and RoundTable India.
Nicole Thiara (she/her) is co-lead of Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial and Global Studies Research Group and Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Research Network Series Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature and its Follow-on Grant On Page and on Stage: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts.
She teaches postcolonial and contemporary literature at Nottingham Trent University. Her area of research is Dalit and diasporic South Asian literature and her current research project is the representation of modernity in Dalit literature.
Mrigakshi Das, from Odisha, India, is a PhD candidate at the School of Arts and Humanities at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. Her research interests include Adivasi and Dalit literature, as well as decolonial and postcolonial studies. Her current research explores Adivasi literature and cinema, focusing on expressions of Adivasi identity and otherness through these mediums.
The CADALFEST series [Celebrating Adivasi and Dalit Arts and Literature Festival] has taken place in various locations in the UK and in India between October 2022 and February 2023, with the opening and final events taking place in Nottingham. These events included poetry, music, drama performances and films, along with Workshops, Masterclasses and public discussions with practitioners of both folk and contemporary performative art forms with the contribution of academic researchers who introduced performances, conducted interviews, contributed to the discussions, and more.
The aim, in the CADALFEST series, is to bring people from different walks of life together, sharing perspectives, enjoying themselves and learning from each other. Creativity and empowering energy channelled through the folk and performing arts productions takes centre stage— the horrors of casteism should not be ignored but the joy of togetherness, limitless creativity and social empowerment strategies should come to the forefront in a much more visible way.
Established in 2020, Formations is an event programme led by NTU’s Postcolonial and Global Studies Research Group in collaboration with Bonington Gallery. The series foregrounds the work of underrepresented writers, academics, artists, intellectuals and activists worldwide who address inequalities of all kinds, often bringing people from different places and working practices together for important conversations.