Workshops
Who Cares?
Chairs, Harisha V, 1976, Indian, 2006, Woodcut print on paper, Image: H. 25.2 cm, W. 35.5 cm; Paper: H. 36.9 cm, W. 51.9 cm, MAC.00179-3
In this workshop, participants will imagine care beyond carceral logics of surveillance, punishment, and disposability, and seek to explore various facets of abolitionist care — delving into questions that prompt us to reflect on:
– What abolitionist care means to us,
– What the boundaries of care within existing structures look like and who is excluded from traditional care narratives, and
– What community-based responses to harm, crisis, and violence look like that centre on care, accountability, and transformative justice.
We will engage in a collective exercise of envisioning a world where barriers to care are dismantled and replaced with transformative, community-based care practices; imagining radical relationships of care that transcend reliance on the state.
This is a closed-door workshop and participants are expected to consider the workshop space with the utmost care, for themselves as well as co-participants. It’s a held space where one is allowed to share their vulnerabilities and be open to navigating conversations and ideas even where discomfort may arise.
We encourage participants with any kind of access needs related to hearing, speaking, learning, etc. to participate in the workshop. If you are a participant of this nature, please write to access@map-india.org prior to registration and let us know the nature of your needs and the support that may be required. We will try our best to make the necessary arrangements in consultation with you.
This workshop is facilitated by Dee and Nishma from Alternative Justice.
This event is part of the larger programming for the exhibition VISIBLE/INVISIBLE: Representation of Women in Art through the MAP Collection.
Limited spaces available. Selected participants will be contacted via email.
Click here to sign up.
Dee
Dee (they/them) is an organiser and facilitator currently living in Bangalore, India. Their anti-violence work is guided by the principles of restorative and transformative justice, rooted in an abolitionist praxis and focused on building meaningful and accountable relationships in our communities. Dee initiated Alternative Justice in early 2020 with an aim to build anti-carceral strategies to address conflict, harm and abuse in India. Along with their co-organisers, Dee facilitates accountability processes that don’t rely on the police, the criminal legal system or other punitive structures, for those who have been harmed or have caused harm. Dee also works as a restorative practices facilitator with Enfold India – an organisation that works towards addressing and preventing child sexual abuse – facilitating restorative circles and reintegration processes for children in conflict with the law, and children in need of care and protection, who are placed in Child Care Institutions in Bangalore.
Nishma
Nishma (she/they) is a facilitator, educator and community organiser who has been organising across a variety of social justice issues for the last 10 years. She is originally from London with roots and community in Gujarat and Mumbai. Nishma works with people globally, within movements to lead and support organisational and community development, build and deliver training curricula rooted in feminist and anti-oppression practices, and design initiatives that move us towards a more liberated world. She has a background in law with a specific interest in critically looking at punitive and individualistic approaches to harm, conflict and abuse. Nishma facilitates accountability and generative conflict processes, grounded in a transformative justice lineage. She is trained in various methodologies for supporting interpersonal conflicts as well as navigating community accountability. Nishma has worked with multiple organisations, movement spaces and collectives globally, in her role at Alternative Justice, to develop conflict processes as well as explore themes such as accountability, boundaries and moving through ruptures. She is currently engaged in a collaborative project exploring abolitionist organisational practices in migrant-led organisations. Nishma also co-wrote a field guide to advance intersectional and trauma-informed approaches to technology-facilitated harms and is deeply informed by somatic practices in shaping how we centre our bodies in the work we do.
Alternative Justice
Alternative Justice is an initiative that works towards building anti-carceral strategies to respond to harm, abuse and conflict in India and the UK. We base our practice in community sustaining frameworks like restorative justice, transformative justice and community accountability that seek to create conditions that cultivate real transformation in our communities. Together, we imagine a world where people on all sides of harm – those who have been harmed, those who have caused harm as well as directly impacted community members – have access to multiple and varied community-based processes that support their healing, allow them to seek tangible accountability from those who act in harmful ways, or, support them in taking accountability for the harm they’ve caused.
