Eshwari R

Writing is wrestling with language and on most days, I do this wrestling, to see what it reveals but mostly to understand what all it conceals. I am drawn to the slow acts of observing, recording, and archiving; trying to catch what I can and coax them onto the page before they dissolve, like sugar in hot chai. My work has appeared in Agents of Ishq, Open Dosa, The Ambedkarian Chronicle, Neralu, Goya, and elsewhere.

On learning

I’ve only taught children, and they’ve taught me in return, sometimes more than I’ve managed to teach them. In those rooms, learning came in bursts of questions. What I want to learn and invite others into learning, is how writing can sharpen observation and help us co-create small archives of our places. To learn a way to make things visible before they disappear. The practice of place-based writing, seeing and describing what unfolds around us, holding onto fragments of conversations, stories, histories, then drafting and redrafting them into records that belong to these places. How do we do this? By treating writing less as a performance and more as a shared experiment, we write together, stumble together, and notice alongside. In this process, I am as much learner as facilitator.

Situated Practice

My practice in Kundapura, Bidar and Channapatna has always been to engage with people using technology as an artefact rather than a solution. My practice involves critical making as a way to demonstrate, engage and collaborate with people in the place. Rapid prototyping, tinkering on field with people, designing and making archives, tools, stories with people.

Place-based Engagements

I engage in the following long-term work across two places.

Manesiri: Working closely with the marketing team, documenting, designing content for outreach, and co-creating written and visual narratives along with the women producers.

Reproductive health cultures: Archiving and recording reproductive health practices across diverse communities in Bidar for community-led action.

Local techno futures: Co-creating speculative artifacts, co-imagining futures of making and documenting the creative processes that unfold.

Visual Cultures: