prajna paramita parasher is a filmmaker/scholar and multi-disciplinary artist practicing at the shifting intersection of classical thought and new technologies. Born in the foothills of the Himalayas, she began her education as a filmmaker in Paris and went on to earn a Ph.D. at Northwestern University. Currently she is an Associate Professor and Director of the Film and Digital Technology program at Chatham University. Her personal focus on postcolonial studies comes to realization in several forms. Her films Unbidden Voices (1989), Exile and Displacement? (1992), Yeh hi hai – Hieroglyphics of Commodity (1998-02); and installations, Image becomes Thought (2000), The Perfect Cleavage (2001), A Door Without Walls (2001), A Ripple Effect (2002), Nazrah: No Space is Empty (2002), Zero at the Bone (2003), Another Homecoming (2004), FlickerFusion: What The Dark Leaves Behind (2005), Pierced by the Prism of Shadow (2006-2007) and A Beholding (2007) turn to concrete form the political, economic and philosophical concerns addressed in her first book Retrospective Hallucination: Echo in Bollywood Modernities (2002). She has also co-edited two books – Kalaa: Fieldnotes from the Interior and Time Space Light Consciousness (2004). Her creative work is experimental and has been shown across the United States of America in venues from small towns to the Smithsonian Institution, Carnegie Museum, Brooklyn Museum, The Nehru Center – London, The Tagore Center -- Berlin and the San Francisco Cinematheque. Already part of the canon at major American Universities, her films are used in Ethnic, Diaspora, Cultural and Women’s Studies. Her most recent work (on canvas and linen paper) is sourced in painting, film, photography and Sufi poetry. She has received recognition via multiple fellowships, awards and grants.

"Poetry can take the tools—words—of the everyday and transform them. So too electronics. Digital impulse provides the possibility of a new language, more sparks out of the endlessness whose reflections help tell us what our life is. I grew up hearing my father recite Urdu poetry. Love returns now as a recognition in a place and context neither Mir, Ghalib, Faiz nor my father could have imagined. Or maybe they could. The reaches of love, perhaps approach the reaches of light.

With gratitude I put on record Mehr Farooqi's selection and translation of the Mir verses. Her willingness to select, translate and recite the verses provide the spirit of the images that open like the absent wingspread. The collaboration with Mehr and her expertise in Urdu poetry, literature and translation has allowed me to once again re-cognize through images that any presence is mostly absence. Our Mir project will very soon find its way into a book.

I am a filmmaker and multimedia artist practicing at the shifting intersection of classical thought and technology.

My education as a filmmaker began in Paris and culminated in a Ph.D at Northwestern University. Currently as Associate Professor in the Media Arts and Communication department at Chatham College, I have the opportunity to investigate connections in teaching and in creating."

URDU CALLIGRAPHIC ART EXHIBIT
DATE/TIME: Friday, September 5, to Sunday, September 14
LOCATION: Harrison Institute / Small Library and Shea House Library