Arts & The Law (Year 2021) (Bengali: কলা এবং আইন)

Sexual harassment is a persistent issue concerning the performing arts field and the manufactured system has conditioned the artists to accept it unconditionally and everything within it goes unchallenged. The first session of the Arts and the Law series aims to capture this socio-legal-cultural dimension of sexual harassment from the lens of the performing arts. It is aimed at legal awareness on the subject-matter among the performing artists with empowerment as an outcome. The endeavour in this session would be to give them the necessary confidence to speak up in case of any such misfortune incidents for the only reason that every artist has a right to lead a dignified life- free from coercion and sexual harassment.

This panel looks at the traditional cultural expressions and performing artists of different genres of arts from the lens of copyright protection – an issue that bothers the performing artists of India. The Indian copyright regime is loosely structured and hence the ambiguity in the laws make the lights of the performing artists extremely difficult with endless hurdles coming their way as hindrances in the creative flow of their minds.

This panel attempts to look at the most crucial of all the concerns of performing rights in India. It looks at the rights that a performer has by the virtue of being an artist. The copyright law in India has provided for various provisions which are inspired by international legal principles on this subject matter, but the implementation of the same has been grossly misunderstood and inefficient. The experts will speak on how can these be modified enough to be able to do justice to the intellectual property rights of artists considering their social economic conditions.

When do the arts cross the line ! What are the limits of artistic expression and who sets these limits ! When are the arts dangerous, provocative or obscene !This panel attempts to look the legal connotations and provisions which seek to protect and regulate such instances !

This session is on Arts and the Rights of LGBTQIA + artists ! It is a difficult subject with so little in terms of rights practically available for those on the margins. But these conversations need to happen continuously to listen to and learn from them ! From our guests from the world of law we get to know about the secure net of laws that are actually available and enforceable and will provide confidence to the arts from the community.

The panel is dedicated to witnessing discussions on the differently-abled and trauma survivors embracing performing arts. Performing arts also plays an important role in the process of rehabilitation which also would be an important facet of discussion in this panel. What are the legal structures in place for the protection of vulnerable communities and their rights !

This panel attempts to look at a crucial and vulnerable section of artists ! Children are no longer an invisible segment in the arts the large number of reality and talent shows built around children is astonishing. In recent years a serious debate has been initiated by sensitive directors who feel that hours and demand on child artistes in novelty ridden talent shows is nothing short of exploitative. Yet right of children in labour scenarios permits artistic labour albeit with some limits. What are these limits? What are the protections built for children? What is the role of a guardian? Who can be the guardian? What agency do the child artistes have to protest!