New Currents SymposiumNew Currents Symposium

Through four ‘currents’ or themes – Ports as Portals, Oceanic Resonances, Water Preparedness and the film programme Coasts as Companions – the symposium reimagines the Indian Ocean as a connected archipelago rather than a collection of nation states. It will also explore Rotterdam’s place within these interconnected histories. Discussions will address topics such as colonial legacies, migration, climate justice, urban development, ecological knowledge and community-led futures, highlighting practices of archiving, listening, care and solidarity across the region. New Currents will invite audiences to build lasting collaborations beyond the symposium.

Contributors include MADEYOULOOK (Nare Mokgotho), Vidya Shivadas, Zahra Malkani, Urbz (Kareena Kochery and Samidha Patil), Traci Kwaai, We Are From Here (Firi Rahman and Lojithan Ram), Sarojini Lewis, Ola Hassanain, The Packet (Sandev Handy and Abdul Halik Azeez) and Lou Mo. The programme concludes with an evening keynote by Mpho Matsipa.

The event is supported by the Nieuwe Instituut’s International Visitors Programme, the Embassies of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in India and Sri Lanka, and the International Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden.

• 10:00 – 10:30 Word of Welcome
• 10:30 – 12:00 Session 1: Ports as Portals
• 12:00 – 13:00 Break
• 12:00 – 13:30 Film session 1: Coasts as Companions
• 13:00 – 15:00 Session 2: Oceanic Resonances
• 15:00 – 16:30 Session 3: Water Preparedness
• 16:30 – 17:00 Closing Remarks
• 17.00 – 18:00 Break
• 18:00 – 18:30 Film session 2: Coasts as Companions
• 19:00 – 21:00 Keynote by Mpho Matsipa
• 21:00 – 22:00 Closing drinks

Visitors can select to join the programme elements to your liking. Please note that the film sessions take place during the breaks and could overlap with other programme elements.

All parts of the programme can also be watched via a live stream, except for the film screenings.

Ports are more than just gateways for trade – they are places where histories, people and ideas converge. Port cities across the Indian Ocean, and Rotterdam itself, share legacies of colonialism, migration and global commerce. This session will explore how personal stories and local histories can reveal these connections, and consider how ports can become spaces of memory, exchange and solidarity, rather than merely links in global supply chains.

With Priya Swamy (Wereldmuseum Rotterdam), Sarojini Lewis, Lou Mo, Firi Rahman (We Are From Here) and Lojithan Ram (We Are From Here).

The ocean carries stories as well as people. Through sound, memory and oral traditions, this session will explore how songs, languages and everyday practices preserve histories of migration, trade and belonging across the Indian Ocean. It asks how listening to these resonances can deepen our understanding of shared pasts and inspire new forms of connection and responsibility.

With Naima Hassan, Ola Hassanain, Zahra Malkani and Traci Kwaai.

Communities across the Indian Ocean have long developed their own ways of living with water, floods and climate change. This session will focus on local knowledge, design and artistic practices that challenge top-down approaches to climate resilience. It will ask how we can learn from community-led responses that are grounded in care, sustainability and collective action.

With Vidya Shivadas (FICA), Abdul Halik Azeez (The Packet), Sandev Handy (The Packet), Kareena Kochery (Urbz), Nare Mokgotho (MADEYOULOOK) and Samidha Patil (Urbz).

The coast is both witness and companion to lives shaped by movement, survival and exchange. This programme of short films is an exploration of coastal communities across the Indian Ocean, highlighting everyday acts of care, ecological knowledge and resistance. Together, the films reveal the coast to be a place of connection, resilience and relationships with more-than-humans.

The film programme features Yunjoo Kwak’s Only the Ports are Loyal to Us, Amaara Raheem’s Submerged, Hira Nabi’s All that Perishes at the Edge of Land, Jeanne Penjan Lassus’s A Jewel in the Mud and Bhargav Prasad and Ain Contractor’s Fight with Care.

New Currents: Indian Ocean Futures is a research project by the Nieuwe Instituut which brings together a global network of researchers, artists and curators. Together, they explore and map the different stories of the Indian Ocean as ‘currents’, highlighting historical legacies that remain important today. The project’s main objective is to promote communication and collaboration across the region.