Guest speaker: Esha Pillay (she/her)  
 
Taking inspiration from her feature in Tamil Futures 2020, Esha Pillay presents her vision for a Tamil future as a low-caste coolie from Fiji - encouraging viewers to further their understanding of gendered and caste-based violence(s) of indentured labour, and their intersections with intergenerational traumas. 

Resources for the episode (as mentioned in the episode): 

- Dr. Gabrielle Jamela Hosein & Dr. Lisa Outar, Indo-Caribbean Feminist Thought: Genealogies, Theories, Enactments 

- Lainy Malkani, Sugar, Sugar: Bitter-Sweet Tales of Indian Migrant Workers 

- Dr. Margaret Mishra, Between Women: Indenture, Morality and Health 

Biography  

Seema Mattu is a Valmiki world-building trickster, whose multi-channel practice is framed as a theme park—known as SEEMAWORLD. Through the playfulness of intersecting amenities and services, visitors are prompted to portal around a unifying setting weaved by Seema’s own multi-minority personhood. 

With an interest in lo-fi high fantasy storytelling, SEEMAWORLD fuses both CGI and IRL environment-building, character creation, mixed-media animation, sound design and visual spectacle to explore: systems of caste, South Asian GL (girl(s) love), queer sorcery, fan labour and classifications of gender via digital technologies. 

Recent projects include work with: Berwick Film and Media Festival, IKON gallery, Eastside Projects, New Art City, Blindspot Gallery and QUAD. In April 2022, she completed both Film London’s FLAMIN Fellowship and a year-long residency with Wysing Arts Centre in March 2023. In December 2021, Seema became a QUAD International Digital Fellow, leading to her first major solo show in Autumn 2023.  

Esha Pillay is an Indo-Fijian writer based in the U.S. whose research looks into intergenerational traumas among Indo-Fijian communities who are descendants of indentured labour and Girmit. She has a focus on caste violence throughout Girmit and in the present and challenges the "post-caste" narrative among descendants of indenture. Her own family stories and lived experiences guide her activism and story-telling across various digital platforms. Esha used to host a dedicated Instagram account, coolie_returns, to share further marginalized histories within larger indentured labour histories across different countries, islands, and diasporas. Her educational posts are now accessible on her website (izlandkuli.wixsite.com/cooliereturns), and you can find her other writing and projects at linktr.ee/izland_kuli.

Seema Mattu - podCASTE Episode 1: girmit histories with izland kuli 🇫🇯

A remix of "Bermondsey Lagoon" from Ectopia's debut album "life/section". Digital version of the album is on Bandcamp here https://wysingpolyphonic.bandcamp.com/album/life-section
Vinyl version available from here http://www.wysingartscentre.org/shop/shop_item/ectopia_life_section

Ectopia Remix

Ectopia – Bermondsey Lagoon (Golden Temple Remix)

NTS LIVE SET [September 4, 2018]

This mix is part of Polyphonic mix series by Wysing Arts Center. 

https://tankmagazine.com/tank/2020/08/crystallmess-wysing-polyphonic/

INTROLUDO INFERNO, is “built around Interludes and Intros - sonic interstices that often allow musicians to be their most vulnerable and reveal the psyche behind their project”.

So far, so real - Gray 
CONSCIENTEOFTHESOUL (Good lads/Bad Lads blend) -  Covco
Over It (CRYSTALLMESS chopped and screwed edit) - Summer Walker 
Hello, it’s me - Katerina 
Side X Intro - Standing On The Corner 
10-34 Reprise - Fatima Al Qadiri 
There is only one year left - Busta Rhymes 
UWËM/CREATION - Space Afrika 
Temps Mort - Booba 
Nothing Without Intention - Solange 
Fröjd - Suutoo 
The Infamous Prelude - Mobb Deep 
Baby Girl Interlude / Intro - Missy Eliott 
Arm N Leg Intro - ???
Direct Line - Dean Blunt 
Needle Dreams - Terribilis 
Claiborne Kick - Westside Gunn ft Boldy James 
Intro Al Naafyish - DJ Feadz
Intro Star Wars - Kelis 
Unknown Interlude - Drexciya 
Yelwa Procession 
CREAM - Lee Gamble 
Black Feathers - Black Replica 
Lars Von Sen - Mr.Oizo

INTROLUDO INFERNO MIXTAPE

A soundtrack to grieve over alternative realities. 

Thank you to Brenda for actually taking me on a night ride to record the sounds and @mangovivi for the beautiful third track (at around 5min)

Interview on:
https://tankmagazine.com/tank/2020/08/mobilegirl-wysing-polyphonic/

II - for Wysing Polyphonic: The Ungoverned

Wysing Arts Centre is a thriving cultural campus of ten buildings across an 11acre rural site in south Cambridgeshire which hosts experimental 
residencies for UK and international artists, and delivers a critically acclaimed public programme of gallery exhibitions and events including conferences, symposia, workshops and music events. 

Buy the first release by music project Ectopia from our website: 7 tracks, mixed and mastered by Rupert Clervaux

Seema Mattu - podCASTE Episode 1: girmit histories with izland kuli 🇫🇯

Wysing Arts Centre

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