Rooted in Place: Radical South Asian Storytelling Blooms in Berkeley

Location: Osha Theater, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)

Barnali Ghosh, Artist, Community Activist, and Designer

Barnali Ghosh will talk about creating the award-winning Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour, part of a growing movement of activist-led, place-based storytelling. She and partner Anirvan Chatterjee have led thousands of people through walks on Berkeley streets revealing little-known histories of immigrant freedom fighters in the 1910s and queer and feminist organizers in more recent years. Ghosh also led the campaign to rename part of Berkeley’s Shattuck Avenue after Kala Bagai, an early 20th-century community leader who immigrated through Angel Island.  As part of her explorations of place and identity, Ghosh has expanded her art practice into photographic self-portraits that highlight the beauty of the native plants of California and the fabrics of South Asia.

This talk is  part of a year-long program of performances, exhibitions, and talks that use Angel Island as an observatory from which to view landscapes of migration, incarceration and resistance. The Angel Island Immigration Station has sometimes been called “the Ellis Island of the West.”  But Angel Island was an ambivalent gateway, a place of incarceration and exclusion for migrants as well as an entry for half a million newcomers from 80 countries, mostly from Asia. A Year on Angel Island is organized by Future Histories Lab and Berkeley Arts and Design. Sign up to hear about future lectures, performances and exhibitions here.

Barnali Ghosh is a designer, artist, storyteller, and transportation justice advocate. She co-founded the award-winning Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour. Her work attempts to bridge homes and homelands, and create spaces for belonging. She is active in Bay Area Solidarity Summer, Walk Bike Berkeley, the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, and the Berkeley Reimagining Public Safety Task Force. She has a Master’s in Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley. You can see her work on instagram @berkeleywali and @berkeleysouthasian or at www.barnalighosh.art.

Free and in-person; see COVID safety protocols here.

The event will also be live-streamed via Zoom webinar. To attend online, register for the webinar here.

Video of this talk will be posted about one week after the event.