Duration: 00:08:37; Aspect Ratio: 1.778:1; Hue: 54.131; Saturation: 0.089; Lightness: 0.275; Volume: 0.173; Cuts per Minute: 0.579
Summary: General welcome and introductory remarks by Mariam Ghani and Chitra Ganesh (Index of the Disappeared) on the first morning of the conference.
Index of the Disappeared (Mariam Ghani + Chitra Ganesh)Chitra Ganesh + Mariam Ghani have collaborated since 2004 on the project Index of the Disappeared, which is both a physical archive of post-9/11 disappearances and a mobile platform for public dialogue. As an archive, the Index traces the difficult histories of immigrant, other and dissenting communities in the US since 9/11, and the ways in which censorship of speech and data blackouts create real absences in real lives, by collecting and
connecting documents and testimony. As a platform, the Index presents discussions on ideas and issues related to the materials it archives
(and some on archiving itself, like this conference), and stages interventions that translate those materials into visual elements installed in a range of physical and virtual spaces - including galleries, museums, universities, community centers, libraries, conferences, magazines, books, windows, the street, the web and the mail. Recent Index projects include a web project commissioned by Creative Time Reports; a print project for the 30th
anniversary issue of the Radical History Review; a parasitic library-within-a-library in the downtown Buffalo public library; a site-specific installation of Index documents related to military codes of conduct at the Park Avenue Armory for the exhibition Democracy in America; and a multilingual window installation at Exit Art with texts drawn from the archive in large-scale neon and vinyl. Ganesh and Ghani are the 2013-14 artists in residence at the Asian/Pacific/American institute at NYU. As part of their residency, Index of the Disappeared is currently presenting the window installation Watch This Space at the Kimmel Center (Washington Square South and LaGuardia Place) and the library installation Parasitic Archive
at the Kevorkian Center (Washington Square South and Sullivan Street). Details, documentation and updates on the Index can be found at
kabul-reconstructions.net/disappeared.
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