Exhibitions
Heidelberg and South Asia – Five Paths Through the City
at Völkerkundemuseum vPST
Discover Heidelberg from a new perspective! This interactive exhibition invites you to explore the diverse connections between Heidelberg and South Asia.
In an introductory room at the Völkerkundemuseum, you’ll explore six interactive tours that you can access on your mobile device using the museum’s app. Featuring museum objects in the display depot, installations in the urban space, audio and video clips, and augmented reality, the tours guide you along various thematic paths—in the museum’s display depot and in Heidelberg’s Old Town.
The tours were curated by students from the Center for Asian and Transcultural Studies at Heidelberg University and combine in-depth knowledge with personal perspectives. Experience how the cultures of Heidelberg and South Asia intersect in the city’s streets, stories, and objects.
The following guided tours along individual “paths” are offered during the conference:
October 2 – 4:15 pm| Power and Ambiguity – Navaratri
October 2 – 4:15 pm | The Object and the Gaze
October 2 – 5:00 pm | Rivers
October 2 – 6:00 pm | Photography
October 3 – 11:15 am | Beyond Gender Boundaries
October 3 – 2:15 pm | Trails of Taste
October 4 – 10:15 am | Trails of Taste
The guided tours start at the Völkerkundemuseum vPST, Hauptstrasse 235
Sacred Dirt: Mother Teresa and Volunteering in Kolkata
by Egor Novikov at Völkerkundemuseum vPST
How can we understand dirt, illness and death if we cannot avoid them, but have to accept them? This exhibition takes an ethnographic look at the day-to-day work in the hospices of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, India. It shows what happens when volunteers – often young people from the West, mostly without experience in caring for the dying – expose themselves to a radical practice of closeness and care. Photographs, drawings, videos and text fragments document not only the physical work of washing, caring and touching, but also the inner processes that take place in these encounters: between compassion and excessive demands, spiritual ideal and cultural foreignness. Many volunteers experience this place as transformative – but their experiences remain ambivalent. What does it mean to help in a context that you barely understand? Where are the boundaries between devotion, helplessness and self-assurance? The exhibition invites visitors to reflect on these areas of tension. It opens our eyes to the spiritual and moral significance of disgust, physical vulnerability, crossing boundaries and the proximity to death – not only in India, but as a universal challenge of human interaction.
ECSAS 2025 participants are invited to join the anthropologist and visual artist Egor Novikov on a guided tour of his work on Thursday, Oct 2 at 7:00 PM.
The exhibition will be running until 22.03.2026.
Buṅgadyaḥ: The Rain-Making God
at the CATS Library
The procession of Buṅgadyaḥ (Rāto ‘Red’ Matsyendranātha) is among the largest and most elaborate ritual events in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Extending over more than two months—from the chariot’s preparation to its conclusion—the festival embodies a rich and living tradition. This exhibition explores the multifaceted nature of the procession through four interwoven themes: places, people, texts, and performances, each offering insight into the cultural and ritual vitality of this (in)tangible heritage.
Dance Performance
Vegavatī. A Māhātmya turned Dance Choreography by Aneesh Raghavan
Film Screening
Survey City (2024) Film by Sanjay Srivastava
