‘The Stories We Tell: A roundtable with women editors’ in progress at the Cultures of Peace on November 10. (Morung Photo by Soreishim Mahong)
Morung Express News
Dimapur | November 10
How do women professionals navigate their way through work places where men have traditionally ruled the roost? What clicks in the mind of a photographer to tell a story through frames frozen in time? How do woman editors/writers/publishers takes up certain stories to write or publish?
These were issues explored during different sessions on the second day of the Zubaan’s annual festival ‘Cultures of Peace 2018’ held in collaboration with T
he Morung Express and the
Heinrich Böll Foundation, India at Hotel Acacia, Dimapur.
In a Man’s World: Tête-à-tête with women professionals
“I share a positive space in my workspace,” the session’s moderator Theyiesenuo Keditsu, a poet, writer and educator opened the discussion sharing experiences of her workspace with majority being women.
The tête-à-tête session with women professionals on “Working in a Man’s World,” include panelist Abokali Zhimomi (entrepreneur), Sophy Lasuh (filmmaker) and Dolly Kikon (Anthropologist) speaking on their profession, gender roles, challenges in work places and women’s role in different professional fields.
Abokali Zhimomi who spends a lot of her time working with farmers, and women self-help groups observed that most of the organic and farming products she needs to run her business come from women farmers.
She however pointed that one barrier women in rural areas faces is land and resources owned by men. Her urban experiences, she sees are the “men to men market competition”. She also pointed that women and men issues, therefore, needs to be addressed accordingly.
Sophy Lasuh who films on ethnographic subjects opined that it was not until she finished her education, she experienced gender divide. Filming on Naga traditions and practices, she shared that women play very little role in decision making amid gender segregation, stereotypes and discrimination in the domestic and social places.
Dolly Kikon, a noted Anthropologist and faculty of Melbourne University recounted her experiences in the academia as ‘a woman’ and ‘a woman of colour’. She said that gender discrimination do exists and for her the important thing is how we deal with it.
‘There’s a lot more you do not see in what you see’
The second day of the Cultures of Peace also witnessed a photo exhibition cum discussion by Zubeni Lotha, a photographer from Dimapur themed ‘On Transition: Looking through the Lens.’ Lotha introduced the ‘exhibition’ saying that she uses photography to express herself.
The present exhibition, she said, is a mix of two of her series: ‘Dimapur Series’ and the ‘Hornbill Series’. The ‘Dimapur series’ is based on memories. She started the series as a way of creating and recreating ideas and notions about ‘a place’.
She pointed out that this project made her realize that ‘memory does not always mean remembering’ and that ‘taking photographs reminded of what she missed’.
Taking the example of one of the photographs, a black and white picture of a deserted lane somewhere around Duncan Bosti, Dimapur; she explained that such images are the ones she remembers. These images are memories of encounters, meaning and symbolism, she said.
Her other series, which was part of the exhibition at the ‘Cultures of Peace’ is the ‘Hornbill Series’. The ‘Hornbill Series’ is a project in which she ‘questioned the culture she was part of’ through her photographs.
Through this series, she questioned the ‘centers of power’ and how culture has become a tool ‘to perpetuate the past’ in the present. She wants her photographs to be a metaphorical and symbolic mirror to interpret.
Talking about photographs of the ‘Hornbill Festival’ in particular and Nagaland in general, she argued that “there’s a lot more you do not see in what you see.”
This, she alluded, is the image of Nagaland created through one-sided image creation of the land and its people leading to ‘exoticization’ of Naga cultures.
During the morning session, panel talk on ‘The Stories We Tell: A Roundtable with Women Editors’ was conducted. The roundtable had Kalpana Sharma journalist and author, Parismita Singh writer and graphic novelist, Tongam Rina Reporter/Associate Editor, The Arunachal Times, Japleen Pasricha founder & editor-in-chief of Feminism in India and Lanusangla Tzüdir author, as well as the publisher and chief editor of Heritage Publishing House in conversation with Xonzoi Barbora professor at TISS, Guwahati, discoursing on why panelists take up certain stories to write and publish; how these stories go against our perceived understanding of politics and culture.
The two days ‘Cultures of Peace’ concluded with a session with feedback and way forward moderated by Dr Aküm Longchari, Publisher of The Morung Express.
