How can performing arts foster inclusivity and interconnectedness?
The Centre for Peace and Performing Arts (CPPA) presents ‘Samagam 2025’, the annual online event designed to bring together artists, art enthusiasts, and the broader academic community for meaningful dialogue on the role of art in fostering unity.
Samagam serves as the foundation for CPPA’s year-round engagement, featuring in-person events, workshops, advocacy efforts, and collaborations.
This year's theme, ‘Art and Interconnectedness’, explores art’s potential to bridge divides in a world marked by pervasive conflict.
How can art unite people across different cultures? What does interconnectedness mean within the realm of the performing arts? These are just a few of the questions Samagam seeks to address.
The event will bring together a diverse array of participants, including artists, CPPA’s cultural ambassadors, diplomats, and art connoisseurs, in an effort to spark meaningful conversations and collaborations that highlight the power of art to create shared understanding and harmony.
Format:
ONLINE
The session will follow a panel discussion format, moderated by a facilitator with expertise in conflict resolution. Each panellist will share their perspectives and presentations, followed by interactive discussions and Q&A sessions with the audience. Additionally, participants will have the opportunity to engage in networking sessions to exchange ideas and foster collaborations.
Date: Friday, May 9, 2025
Time: 12 PM EST/18:00 CET
REGISTRATION LINK: Samagam: Art and Interconnectedness
FACEBOOK EVENT: https://www.facebook.com/share/16ZR8Ba7kY/
SPEAKERS and performer:
Professor Marina Hassapopoulou, PhD
Distinguished Educator and Cinema Researcher
Marina Hassapopoulou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cinema Studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She formerly served as Associate Co-Director of the university’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. Her interdisciplinary research spans digital humanities, transnational and border cinema, posthumanism, science fiction, fan and reception studies, film and media theory/philosophy, and hybrid pedagogy.
Her recent book, Interactive Cinema: The Ambiguous Ethics of Media Participation (University of Minnesota Press, Electronic Mediations series, 2024), explores ephemeral and site-specific film practices that integrate viewers into the creative process. Drawing on diverse, often politically charged cinematic experiments, the book redefines interactivity in both technological and phenomenological terms.
Professor Hassapopoulou’s work has received numerous accolades, including the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Innovative Pedagogy Award (2021) and the University of Cambridge’s International Research and Collaboration Award for Histories of AI: A Genealogy of Power (2020–21). She is also the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Publication Fellowship (2025–26) for her project, Countering Media Obsolescence through Interactivity: Grappling with Issues of Access and Preservation in Interactive Cinema Traditions.
On her work:
New Book: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517915223/interactive-cinema/
ExpressiveAI.net, Weird Wave Archive, Interactive Media Archive, and (coming soon) Interarchive.net
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Jamal Penjweny
War Artist, Filmmaker, and Photographer
Jamal Penjweny is a photographer and filmmaker born in 1981 in Sulaimaniya, Iraqi Kurdistan. He began documenting life in Iraq as a youth while working as a shepherd, a perspective that continues to inform his work. In 2004, while based in Baghdad, he began reporting on the Iraqi conflict for international media, with his photographs appearing in outlets such as The New York Times, National Geographic, and The Guardian.
Penjweny’s work has been exhibited widely, including at institutions across the United Kingdom, United States, France, China, New Zealand, Brazil, Dubai, and beyond. He represented Iraq at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, where he participated in the country's national pavilion. His photography projects have been featured at the New Museum (New York), Musée du Quai Branly (Paris), National Museum of Bahrain, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, the Imperial War Museum (London), Today Art Museum (Beijing), Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Rome), and the British Museum.
On his work:
https://dancingontheedge.nl/artists/jamal-penjweny/
https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/iraq-jamal-penjweny/
https://www.artrepresent.com/jamal-penjweny
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Aastha Mohapatra
Opera Singer (Coloratura Soprano), Music Engagement Specialist, and Development Economist
Aastha Mohapatra is an Indian opera singer (coloratura soprano) known for her expressive vocal artistry and cross-cultural repertoire. A student of the late Situ Singh Buehler, she has performed across Europe and Asia, appearing in notable roles such as Princess Afrona in The Golden Cockerel with Orchestra Vox and as a lead in The Money Opera directed by Amitesh Grover.
She was a finalist and the youngest performer at Trinity Laban’s Singing Competition (2021) and the Voices of India International Singing Competition at NCPA (2018). Her recent recital at the historic Holywell Music Room earned international recognition, particularly for her interpretations of Victor Paranjyoti’s Song of Radha and Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali. She continues to refine her craft under the mentorship of Professor Jennifer Hamilton at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.
In addition to her musical career, Mohapatra is a trained development economist, holding degrees from the University of Oxford and Lady Shri Ram College for Women. She is committed to leveraging music as a tool for peacebuilding, social cohesion, and holistic well-being.
She currently serves as the Music Engagement Specialist with CPPA, where she supports the curation, execution, and organization of initiatives across the music domain.
On her work: