The ArQuives Digital Exhibitions

Introduction

Khush Presents: Desh Pardesh (1990)

Desh Pardesh was a South Asian arts festival that was held between the years 1988 and 2001. It began under the name Salaam Toronto in collaboration with the Khush collective — an organization for gay men of South Asian background. We have collaborated with The ArQuives, the South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC), and the LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory to compile this festival's oral history. Our findings are presented below. The South Asian Visual Arts Centre created these oral history interviews with artists and organizers involved in the festival in 2016. 

Please note that the snippets of interviewee respondents included are very small portions of much larger conversations. We encourage you to listen to and leaf through the actual full interviews for context and clarity purposes. We have linked the snippets of interviews to the full interviews for this purpose.

This exhibit aims to layout the festival year by year and highlights significant events or ideologies that emerged during these times. You can click through each set of years and find clips of interviews discussing the festival and related archival documents that provide more context to what the interviewees are saying. 

Created By: Alisha Krishna and Amal Khurram, with Saj Soomal (SAVAC/CLGA). The exhibit was created as part of the LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory, a 5 year SSHRC project directed by Elspeth Brown, University of Toronto.

Introduction