Desifuturism

Names

• Desifuturism
• Desifuturisms
• Can overlap with the broader category of South Asian Futurism(s)
• Can overlap with Indofuturism, though "Desi" is broader and not limited to India
• Can overlap with Indigenous Futurism(s), Adivasi Futurism(s), Dalit Futurism(s), Tropical Futurism(s) and more

Artists and Creators

• Saks Afridi (US)
• Nag Aswhin (IN)
• Maya Arulpragasam aka MIA (SL-UK-IN)
• Kai (Kari) Altmann aka Hitashya (US-IN)
• Bloni Atelier (Akshat Bansal) (UK-IN)
• Priya Sarukkai Chabria
• Vimal Chandran (IN)
• Omar Gilani (PK-UK)
• Varun Gupta (IN)
• Akanskha Jain
• Svetha Yallapragada Rao aka Raja Kumari(US-IN)
• Subash Thebe Limbu (NP)
• Sam Madhu (IN-DE)
• Satyajit Ray
• The Otolith Group (Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun) (UK)
• Tarun K. Saint
• Osheen Siva
• Shweta Taneja
• Shveta Thakrar
• Krishna Udayasankar
• Sukanya Venkatraghavan

Curators, Theorists & Critics

• Saddaf Padder (US)

Events

• KALAK, Roundhouse London, March 10-12 2023. Curated by Sarathy Kolwar.

Discussions

• "XLE.LIFE presents XLE.LIVE: #Indofuturism? #Desifuturism?", XLE.LIFE, Online, Mumbai, Zurich, April 2023. Speakers: Kai (Kari) Altmann, Prateek Arora, Naveen Shamsudhin. Curated and Moderated by Kai (Kari) Altmann.
• UH Manoa Center for South Asian Studies Spring Symposium 2024: "South Asian Futures", University of Hawai'i at Manoa, April 10-12, 2024. Speakers: Vijay Prashad, Anna Stirr, Pallavi Gupta, Jairus Grove, Monica Gosh, Anju Parvathy Biju, Nudrat Kamal, Sadaf Padder, Ian Bellows, Aqsa Mengal, Mangalika de Silva, Ned Bertz, Nikita Das, Ninad Pandit, Tabinda Mahfooz Khan, Pasang Yangjee Sherpa, Kalzang Dorje Bhutia, Charisma Lepcha, Mabel Denzin Gergan, Elspeth Iralu, Sara Smith, Subash Thebe Limbu, Shalini Kakar, Aatika Singh, M. Shobhana Xavier, Prateek Paul, Maha Ali, Jan Brunson, Pallavi Gupta.

Publications

Books

• Sukanya Venkatraghavan (ed.), Magical Women, Hachette India, April 25 2019, 240pp. English. Works by Asma Kazi, Kiran Manral, Krishna Udayasankar, Nikita Deshpande, Ruchika Roy, Samhita Arni, Sejal Mehta, Shreya Ila Anasuya, Shveta Thakrar, Shweta Taneja , Sujatha S.V., Sukanya Venkatraghavan, Tashan Mehta, Trisha Das.

• Tarun K. Saint (ed.), The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Hachette India, 424pp., 2019. Works by Adrish Bardhan, Anil Menon, Arjun Rajendran, Arunava Sinha, Asif Farrukhi, C.M. Naim, Chandrashekhar Sastry, Clark Prasad, Giti Chandra, Harishankar Parsai, Kaiser Haq, Keki N. Daruwalla, Manjula Padmanabhan, Maya Joshi, Mimi Mondal, Mohammad Salman, Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, Nur Nasreen Ibrahim, Payal Dhar, Premendra Mitra, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Rahul Sankrityayan, Rimi B. Chatterjee, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, S.B. Divya, Sami Ahmad Khan, Shovon Chowdhury, Somendra Singh Kharola, Sumita Sharma, Syed Saeed Naqvi, Tarun K. Saint, Vandana Singh.

• Tarun K. Saint (ed.), The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction Volume 2, Hachette India, Sept 30 2021, 488pp. Works by Manjula Padmanabhan, Tarun K. Saint, Shiv Ramdas, Medha Singh, Tashan Mehta, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, Vajra Chandrasekera, Senaa Ahmad, Arjun Raj Gaind, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Soham Guha, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Kehkashan Khalid, Bina Shah, Anil Menon, Aparna Ramachandran, Jayant V. Narlikar, Vandana Singh, Gautam Bhatia, Kaiser Haq, Kalsang Yangzom, Gita Chandra, Haris A. Durrani, Usman T. Malik, Salik Shah, Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Sami Ahmad Khan, Shovon Chowdhury, Sukanya Datta, Premee Mohammad, Naveen Weeraratne, Saad Z. Hossain.

• Taryne Jade Taylor, Isiah Lavender III, Grace L. Dillon, Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of CoFuturisms, Routledge, Oct 2023, 716 pp. Publisher.

Magazines, Journals, Blogs

• Srinivasa Ramanujan & Jayalakshmi Eshwar, Antariksha Studio, Facebook, 2019-present.
• Srinivasa Ramanujan & Jayalakshmi Eshwar, ElsewhereinIndia, Instagram, 2020-present.

Essays, Articles, Book Chapters

• Ryan A D'Souza, "Imagining a Desi Future", South Asian Popular Culture, vol. 17, no.1, Apr 2 2019, pp. 47-59.

• Priteegandha Naik, "Dalit-futurist Feminism: New Alliances through Dalit Feminism and Indian Science Fiction", Journal of International Womens' Studies, Volume 22, Issue 10, Casteing Gender: Intersectional Oppression of Dalit women, Bridgewater State University, Oct 2021.

• Dhruva Balram, Raveena Aurora, "Welcome to Raveena’s desi-futurist utopia", Dazed Magazine, February 21 2022.

• Hina Siddiqui, "Cultural Futurism: Possibilities, Probabilities and Potential", ArtNowThus.in, May 2022.

• Akshata Kapoor, Joe Habben, Kapil Seshasayee, "Imagining a world beyond caste discrimination through desi-futuristic music", Shado Mag, February 16, 2023.

• Saddaf Padder, "Coasting the Topography of South Asian Futurisms", Hyperallergic, March 27 2023.
• Saddaf Padder, "How Can a Curator Approach South Asian Futurisms?", Hyperallergic, March 23 2023.
• Saddaf Padder, "In Search of Inclusive South Asian Futurisms", Hyperallergic, March 22 2023.

• Zafrah Khalid, "Navigating Native Slipstream and Indigenous Futurism: Upending Western Tropes in Pakistani Speculative Art", University of Chitral Journal of Linguistics & Literature, Volume 8, ISSUE I, February 2024.

• Kai (Kari) Altmann, "Kai (Kari) Altmann aka Hitashya's Top Ten of 2023 for XLE.LIFE", XLE.LIFE, March 15 2024.

• Kai (Kari) Altmann, "XLE.LIFE: New Terms 2024: Indofuturism(s) and Desifuturism(s)", XLE.LIFE, March 22 2024.

See Also

Futurisms, Indofuturism, South Asian Futurisms, New World, Indigenous Futurism, Adivasi Futurism, Global South Futurisms, Third Culture, Fourth Culture, Fifth Culture, Post Western, Tropical Futurism, Afrofuturism, Decolonization, AI, Sci-Fi, Queer Studies