The urge to hold on to memories, personal or collective, while hoping to preserve them with care and conviction is only human. This process can often makes us wonder – Who cares what my great grand aunt wrote in her experiences of the independence movement; or 1994 ભૂમિકા ભજવનાર મારા શહેરના ડોકટરોની વાર્તાઓ શું છે; or मेरे पुश्तैनी गांव की ऐतिहासिक सरोवर की कहानयां जानने में कसि दलिचस्पी होगी?

Curating for Culture’s call for participation thus proposed that all participants think about their family/local histories beyond the ‘personal’.

Would we make our personal history public?

If not, why the hesitation?

If yes, what socio-political concerns does it address? Does it help us critically look at issues of erasure, marginalization, oppression…?

Or, would we rather continue living with them ‘at home’?

घर or Home, traditionally defined as a dwelling or habitation, also means Enclosure (Proto-Indo-European “g”rd”-ó-s, from *g’erd”) which imbues a sense of safe keeping. On the other hand, گھر گھر (Ghar Ghar Karna) in Urdu means Rumble [ruhm-buh I]., a Hindi phrase, means – मन आदि में अच्छी तरह से स्थरि होना ताक सहजता से न नकिल सके to imbibe and internalize it in yourself, such that it cannot be erased easily.

Given such iterations, must we still think of ‘the body’ as the only home to these histories? Or do we need our institutions to care for our personal stories? Besides protecting historical assets, how can institutions extend instruments of care to these histories?

Kitchen to Kacheri has emerged as a collective response to these interrogations, and through the act of archiving and engagement, we invite you to unpack the logic of care, custodianship and construction, and the ways to care for somebody else’s narrative.

At Kitchen to Kacheri, we want to know Where do you come from, Why do you care and how?

Participating Archivisits

Aarish Sardar
Avantika Seth
Chitra Vishwanath
Kamal Badhey
Mehwish Abid
Niyati Hirani
Pattani Archives
Priyanjoli Basu
Radhika Hegde
Rukmini Swaminathan
Soni Wadhwa
Soumya Bhave
Suresh Jayaram
Upasana Das
Vallabhi Jalan
Vivek Muthuramalingam
Pradeep Sachdeva Design Associates
Khushnu Panthaki Hoof & Niharika Joshi

Curatorial Team
Aditi Chauhan
Vedika Kaushal
curatorial team