Satyendra Pakhalé is invited to give a public lecture with the title ‘Between Memory and Oblivion – Between Tradition and Innovation’ as part of Tradition Now Chinese Handicrafts serial lectures of Masters in Residence at Nanjing University of the Arts.

‘The only constant thing in life is change, there ought to be constant revolution of old ideas and traditions.’ Satyendra Pakhalé

Creation is between memory and oblivion

“Being a designer one is always thinking of the future, but also always connect to the past.

We need the past because we need memory – but we also need invention and innovation.

In some way we have to be grateful to tradition, as Indian living in the world – I am very grateful not only to Indian traditions but also several traditions from various cultures. However, I am ambivalent to traditions. At the same time I hate traditions. I am not a traditionalist.

Excessive tradition can kill you – literally could paralyse one’s faculty to dream. We need a kind of balance between gratitude for the past, desire for invention and curiosity for the unknown. The poet Luis Borges said something beautiful about creation, “Every creative work is somewhere between memory and oblivion. One remembers things but also one forgets things. As one forgets – that leads to oblivion, then there is a space in which one can invent something new.”

Unless we throw way the deadwood of the past as John Dewey used to say we can not create a meaningful future.”

Dead wood from the past

“Every society gets encumbered with what is trivial, with what is dead wood from the past and what is positively perverse. As a society becomes more enlightened, it realizes that it is responsible not to conserve and transmit the whole of its achievement, but only such as makes a better future society.”

Dr. John Dewey

Public Lecture Satyendra Pakhalé / Cultural Nomad /萨天德拉·帕卡雷

Nanjing University / Industrial Design Institute / Nanjing Art University / Nanjing / China

15 Huju N Rd, Gulou Qu, Nanjing Shi, Jiangsu Sheng, 210003

Tuesday19 June 2018 / 18:30 h – 20:00 h