MaPandemic: Mapping Experiential Perspectives of the Pandemic

Our last episode in the Musical Manifesto Project, Wall of Words, War of Worlds, was about playing with words and meaning, exploring “Space and Place”, which was one of the themes that emerged from our Lyrical Letter-Exchange. We intend to continue our exploration on “Space and Place” by bringing our experiential perspectives in yet another way.

As a tribute to the Wall of Words, War of Worlds, we create the new episode with an inter-play of words: MaPandemic — mapping the Pandemic, engaging with a process of cartography of navigating through uncharted path, unexplored territories, unknown waters. With our obsession for being certain, this time offers us a unique opportunity to get lost. In the words of Rebecca Solnit:

“Never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction and somewhere in the terra incognita in between lies a life of discovery.”

One of our re-defined words in our last episode was also about the complex relationship we have with ‘productivity’, ‘goals’, ‘deadlines’ and ‘time’. Many of these find resonance with Rebecca Solnit as well.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/08/04/field-guide-to-getting-lost-rebecca-solnit/

This episode, we are returning to our Potluck format. We encourage you to ponder over the following excerpt from Rebecca Solnit:

“Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go. Three years ago I was giving a workshop in the Rockies. A student came in bearing a quote from what she said was the pre-Socratic philosopher Meno. It read, “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” I copied it down, and it has stayed with me since. The student made big transparent photographs of swimmers underwater and hung them from the ceiling with the light shining through them, so that to walk among them was to have the shadows of swimmers travel across your body in a space that itself came to seem aquatic and mysterious. The question she carried struck me as the basic tactical question in life. The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation. Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration — how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?”

We encourage you to attempt to map the spaces and places you could or could not explore during the Pandemic, through an act of mapping, however you want to interpret it. In Tuan’s words, “Place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to one and long for the other.” It would be good if you can get some objects or photographs that can help you do storytelling of your act of mapping, the cartography of sense-making of your spaces and places that were /are/could be transformative. This we believe would let us travel with you as you share your contribution to the potluck with the fellow-travellers while the rest relish the food for soul or thought. Your choice of medium can be a song, a poem, a video, a write-up or a photo-essay or anything else, but we would love it if you can associate it with the idea of mapping and associate any object/artefact with it to show how these are symbols of spaces and places that you unravelled or could not.

Date and Time: 28 June 6 PM to 8 PM (IST)

Core Design and Production Team:
Gayathri Menon
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gayathrigmenon/
Aditi Singh
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aditi-singh-5809b8189/
Kunika Bajaj
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kunika-bajaj-3188051b0/
Niladri Mukherjee
https://www.linkedin.com/in/niladri-mukherjee-844134166

Design, Concept and Creative Direction:
Sudebi Thakurata
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sudebi/