The Post-graduate students of MA in Gender, Culture and Development Studies for their course - WS8 Culture: Gender Perspectives (Focus on Popular Culture) - used the visual to interrogate the cultural and social and make three Non-Fiction Video Documentation projects on Cultures of Cinema, Cultures of Consumption of Jeans and Cultures of Reading. These projects began with understanding the process of visual documentation through a one-day workshop ‘Using Visual Images to Document Social ideas’ by Akash Dhopeshwarkar. Following this workshop, students developed their story ideas and scripts and then shot one hour footage to create a 10-12 minutes visual document on the cultures of going to the cinema, jeans and its consumption by youth and cultures of reading among the youth. The visual document was appreciated as a ‘good first effort’ and for ‘great clarity about concepts among students’.

As part of the WS7 Gender, Culture and Development Course the students organized a Mock UN Conference on Migration which looked at issues concerning domestic work and sex work.

In the WS6 Feminist Thought and Theory Course students organized a talk show, using the feminist debates on equality, discrimination, motherhood and violence to discuss concrete case studies of reservations, surrogacy and domestic violence.


Undergraduate Students of the Three-Month Interdisciplinary Certificate Course in Women and Development at Symbiosis College documented the practice of ‘Valentine’s Day’ and learnt skills of film- making through sessions about its technical aspects, and specifically by meeting a team of video volunteers of Akshara, Mumbai. The films reflected on themes of storybook love, questioning love, the political economy of V Day celebrations and the ‘Big Brothers’ watching over Valentine’s Day festivities. These films were screened along with films made by the team of video volunteers of Akshara, Mumbai which meant a rich exchange of ideas and valuable suggestions from the team who drew from their experience in producing community videos made by youth.

The students of Three-Month Interdisciplinary Certificate Course in Women and Development at T.C. College, Baramati conceived, designed and produced a newsletter ‘A Revolution of Equality’ on their experience of the course. The project was designed with the idea of developing skills of writing, reporting, interviewing, collecting documents and layouting, all of which was done by the students themselves. The newsletter had different sections involving interviews, reports and reflections. The section on interviews included interviews of principal, teacher coordinators on the importance of the course, interviews of students on their learnings from the course and a group interview of noted playwright Sushma Deshpande on being and becoming a feminist. The students also carried out a small survey with girls and boys on campus on their perceptions of safety and security. The newsletter had reports of three sessions conducted in college as well as an entry judged as the best entry from the college magazine. The effort put in by the students indicated their learning of the processes of group work, coordination, putting various skills to work and producing a newsletter.

UPCOMING EVENTS