Big Devi Energy · 2026
The River Remembers
Water remembers.
Rivers carry stories across generations, landscapes, and lifetimes. Just as water holds memory, our bodies hold ancestral stories, inherited wisdom, grief, resilience, and possibility.
The River Remembers invites participants into a day of inquiry, movement, ritual, art, and collective reflection exploring the currents that shape who we are and how we belong to one another.
The River Remembers: A Self-Guided Labyrinth
With Shital Dalwadi
A self-guided labyrinth made for The River Remembers, with an audio companion to walk beside you. Move at your own pace through remembrance, gratitude, and the cycles that shape a life. There is no destination and nothing to solve, only an invitation to slow down and listen. Enter any time during the day.
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10:30 AM to 10:45 AM
Opening Meditation & Water Ritual
With Anita Vyas
The day opens with sound, ritual, and meditation. Before we turn to memory and inheritance, we pause to honor water as our first teacher and witness.
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11:00 AM to 11:45 AMWaterside conversation
Mother Waters: The Interconnectedness of Water
With Janavi M. Folmsbee and a special guest
A conversation about water as a carrier of memory across cultures. From the descent of the Ganga to the shared waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Indian Ocean, we ask what rivers can teach us about ancestry, responsibility, and the stories that move across generations.
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12:00 PM to 12:45 PM
Letters & Water Inquiry
Facilitated by Godhuli Gupta & Sandhya Raghuraman
A small-group ritual of writing, storytelling, and movement. Write letters to ancestors, to future selves, or to the parts of yourself you have set aside, then share in collective witnessing.
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1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
Community Lunch
A pause for food, rest, and conversation.
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2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Tea Talk
With Vivi, Kin Café at Asia Society
Vivi of Kin Café at Asia Society asks what water carries into every cup of tea. Tracing the colonial history of tea in India, this conversation looks at how land, labor, and migration shaped the rituals we now reach for out of comfort. Tea moved from a colonial commodity to an everyday gesture of hospitality, reclaimed and remade along the way. Vivi also shares how teas, herbs, and spices support rest and digestion, and how history and the body meet in a single cup.
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3:15 PM to 4:00 PMPanel
Beyond Good and Bad: What Makes Art Matter?
A conversation about artistic responsibility, beauty, disruption, and cultural memory. Art decides what survives: the stories a culture chooses to tell become part of what the next generation remembers.
Moderated by Zainob Amao
With Sandhya Raghuraman(dance), Artee Kumar (acting and makeup artistry), Sneha Bhavsar (art), and Alx (DJ).
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4:00 PM to 6:00 PMClosing
Waters of Memory: Exhibition
The day closes with an exhibition of water as archive and storyteller. Through visual art, sound, installation, and poetry, the final hours hold space for migration, grief, joy, and return. Come and go as you like.