Welcome to the Aksara Bharata Conference 2025, a hybrid gathering hosted by Poorvam International Journal of Creative Arts and Cultural Expressions. Scheduled for November 5–6, 2025, this event invites scholars, practitioners, and cultural thinkers to engage with the theme: Transcultural Aesthetics – South-Asian Heritage in Contemporary and Digital Arts. It serves as a platform for critical reflection and creative collaboration across cultures, mediums, and disciplines.
In an age of intensified global connectivity, the need for meaningful intercultural dialogue has never been greater. South Asia’s aesthetic and philosophical traditions offer profound frameworks for understanding creativity, community, and transformation. This conference seeks to bridge classical theories such as Rasa and Nāṭya with emerging modes of expression in the digital era. By creating a dialogue between rooted cultural practices and contemporary experimentation, Aksara Bharata fosters a shared space for exchange, innovation, and inclusivity.
The event features keynote addresses, academic panels, artistic showcases, exhibitions, and cross-cultural workshops, offering immersive engagement both on-site and online.
This year’s theme invites critical reflection on how South Asian aesthetic legacies—rooted in performative, visual, ritual, and literary traditions—continue to shape and be reshaped by contemporary artistic practices. By tracing the journey from Nāṭyaśāstra to the algorithm, from oral storytelling to augmented reality, the conference creates space for dialogue across time, culture, and media. It supports both continuity and experimentation in addressing contemporary concerns such as identity, sustainability, and access through heritage-informed creativity.
Participants may engage with the central theme through the following subthemes:
How do age-old performance traditions find resonance in the present? This subtheme explores:
Examining how digital tools influence the preservation and dissemination of culture:
Explores the negotiation of identity across borders and cultures:
Focuses on practices that prioritize ethical engagement and inclusive methodologies:
This conference encourages engagement with a spectrum of theoretical frameworks that inform transcultural arts research and practice. These include but are not limited to:
The Aksara Bharata Conference 2025 aims to achieve the following:
We invite submissions from scholars, artists, performers, curators, digital humanists, heritage professionals, and community practitioners working at the intersection of Indian cultural traditions and contemporary creative practice. Accepted formats include:
Submissions should align with the conference theme or subthemes and demonstrate originality, relevance, and interdisciplinary engagement.
Please submit your proposal via the online submission form by June 30, 2025. Required components include:
Submissions will undergo a double-blind peer review. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by August 15, 2025. Accepted presenters must register by September 30, 2025. For questions, contact conference@poorvam.com.
Registration details, including fees and virtual access instructions, will be available by July 2025. Early registration is recommended for in-person attendees due to limited seating.
Published by Dhvani Publication
