Walkthroughs
Memories of Rock
Arnika Ahldag, Narendra Kusnur, Vaishnavi Kambadur
While the two decades spanning the 1960s to 1980s marked the golden age of rock music globally, the musical genre reached its peak in the Indian subcontinent by the late 90s, carrying on into the early 2000s. During this period of tectonic shifts in polity, society, and the economy, internationally acclaimed and mega popular bands like Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, The Rolling Stones, and many more – toured cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru (then still Bangalore)… defining an entire generation and its coming of age, in a sense. Scores of people vividly remember this period for a multitude of reasons, and so often, a rock concert is etched in the memories of these denizens.
Join Arnika Ahldag, Narendra Kusnur, and Vaishnavi Kambadur in this intimate conversation among music aficionados and concert goers, and reminisce about an era of blinding lights, heady riffs, and sweaty mosh pits. As we walk you through the Rock City exhibition, a collaboration between MAP & Bengaluru-based events management company DNA Networks, we welcome you to share anecdotes on banging bands and cool concerts you have experienced.
Bookings
Bookings are closed for this event.
Arnika Ahldag
Associate Curator
Arnika Ahldag is the associate curator at MAP. As an art historian, she investigates the representation of labour in Indian contemporary art. Her curatorial projects include the public programme for IAF 2020 and Mapping Gender: Bodies and Sexualities in the Global South at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. As an artist she works in video and performance and her recent projects were shown at the Bhubaneswar Art Trail, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Modern Art and Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi. She co-founded the Feminist Syllabus, which is part of the workshop series Pact of Silence, How to break it, a programme for intersectional feminist discourses in the arts. Over the past years she lectured at the National School of Drama and OP Jindal Global University in New Delhi. She is a PhD candidate at JNU and holds an MA from University College in London, UK and Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg, Germany.
Narendra Kusnur
Music Journalist
Narendra Kusnur has been a music journalist and columnist for over 25 years, and has written extensively for Mid-Day, The Hindu, Seniors Today and Rolling Stone India besides other publications. He has covered various genres of music including rock, jazz, blues, western classical, Indian classical and film music. He has written about rock music extensively in India since 1995 – besides Indian festivals like Independence Rock and Great Indian Rock, he has covered shows by Roger Waters, Rolling Stones, Scorpions, Michael Jackson, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Mark Knopfler, Yanni, Shakira and various other international acts which have visited India. Kusnur has also had stints in EMI Music India, where he looked after the Warner Music catalogue, and Reliance TimeOut books and music stores as a trainer and assortment consultant. He has done an online jazz appreciation series for NCPA besides interviewing musicians for online shows by ShowCase Studio and Music Plus.
Vaishnavi Kambadur
Assistant Curator
Vaishnavi Kambadur is an assistant curator at the Museum of Art & Photography, Bengaluru. Her research investigates the practice of making cloth and addresses its challenges in the context of labour, culture and fashion theory. She has over 8 years of experience from working with research archives, retail web stores, garment factories to designing textiles. Her most recent virtual exhibition on hair practices in India was published in VMIS (Virtual Museum of Images and Sounds).
Previously, Kambadur held internships at Christie’s and Textile Arts Center, New York, and assisted in teaching courses like history of fashion and fashioning micro-utopias. She holds a MA in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design, New York and a Bachelor’s degree in Knitwear Design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi.
