The symposium will examine the relationship between illustration and broader visual arts heritage in South Asia with regard to the transference and preservation of folklore and myths. These forms of storytelling, traditionally oral in nature, were used to make sense of humans' place in an enchanted world, legitimize empires, and construct communal identities. Today, contemporary illustrators revisit mythic and folkloric sources to reimagine how these older narrative worlds can speak to present concerns like ecological precarity, minority rights, and diasporic identity. Yet such visual and narrative inheritances are being steadily displaced and erased in Pakistan and elsewhere by imported aesthetic and ideological frameworks like those of Gulf-influenced Islamization and the soft power of East Asian visual culture.

This call is open to all students, academics, and practitioners whose work engages with folklore from South Asia. Posters will be displayed at the symposium, image and format specifications will be shared once proposals have been accepted.