This public program explores poetry as a practice of living within linguistic, historical, and temporal uncertainty. Anchored in the writings of poet and artist Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, the session examines poetry as a space of translation, migration, and ethical imagination.

The event will feature a moderated poetic conversation accompanied by readings of Sheikh’s poems in original and translated forms. Poets K Satchidanandan from Kerala and Kanji Patel from Gujarat will engage in dialogue on multilingual literary traditions, coastal histories, and translation as a method of inhabiting time rather than resolving it. The session concludes with an open audience discussion.

The program is designed for Biennale visitors, writers, poets, translators, students of literature and art history, artists, curators, and readers interested in South Asian multilingual literary traditions.

About the Artist / Speakers

Gulam Mohammed Sheikh (b. 1937) is a poet, painter, and translator whose writings traverse Gujarati, and English, reflecting on migration, memory, and coexistence. Joining the discussion is Malayalam poet and critic K. Satchidanandan (b. 1946). His work reflects on political time, displacement, and cultural memory and is invested in translation as a mode of ethical and intellectual exchange. His presence situates the program within a broader South Asian tradition of poetry as public thought along with Gujarati poet and Indigenous peoples activist Kanji Patel (b. 1952), whose work foregrounds indigenous memory and multilingual cultural histories.