Interreligious Encounters and Creative Practice

 
Revd Dr George Tsourous is informing us that, from 19 - to 21 January 2026, there is an exhibition and symposium in Edinburgh titled Interreligious Encounters and Creative Practice, exploring how religious coexistence is lived, negotiated, and reimagined through creative work - across shared spaces, everyday encounters, and educational settings.
 

The programme brings together anthropologists, architects, artists, filmmakers, and educators, and includes panels, installations, performances, and a schools’ workshop strand. It’s part of a longer collaboration developed with Religions for Peace UK, building on earlier work at Newcastle and now continuing in Edinburgh.
 
An important strand of the conference involves working with two local schools in Edinburgh, bringing pupils directly into the exhibition space through hands-on workshops focused on coexistence in everyday contexts.
 
WEDNESDAY 21st January 2026
 
10:30-12 noon (Informatics Forum)
Panel 4: Mediating Encounters
Milja Radovic (University of Vienna). Cinematic Spaces of Memory.
R. Santhosh (IIT Madras) and Navaneeth H. (IIT Madras/University of Edinburgh).  Between a
Muslim Dargah and Hindu Temple: Religious Coexistence and the Discourse of Communal
Harmony in Kerala, South India.
Marcelo de Medeiros Reis Filho (Instituto de Estudos de Sociais e Políticos, IESP/UERJ).
Sounds and the divine: mediation, connection and artistic practices in a carioca favela.
 
Chair: Giulia Liberatore (University of Edinburgh
 
12:30-2pm (Informatics Forum)
Panel 5: Shaping Encounters
Birgit Meyer (Utrecht University). Dynamics of urban-religious world making in Madina,
Accra.
Joseph Fifi Fosu-Ankrah (University of Ghana). Religious Images, Lorry Parks, and the
Dynamics of Coexistence: A Social History of Urban Encounters, Ecological Discourses, and
Interreligious World-Making in Madina, Accra (2000s–Present)
Frederico Dinis (Universidade Catolica Portuguesa). Performing Memory, Shaping Belonging:
Site-Specific Art in Religious Contexts
 
Chair: George Tsourous (Newcastle University)
 
Lunch 2-3pm
 
3-4:30pm
Panel 6: Placing Encounters  (Informatics Forum)
Susanna Trotta (Humboldt University). Religious encounters in shared spaces: the case of the
St. Georgis Eritrean Orthodox community and the St. Paul’s congregation in Berlin, Germany
Way Weng Hew (University of Edinburgh). Cosmopolitan Islam and Its Limits: Chinese-style
mosques in Malaysia and Indonesia
Isabelle Christine Somma de Castro (University of São Paulo, Nupri-USP). From social threat
to tourist attraction: the mosque Omar Ibn Al-Khattab in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil
 
Chair: Christos Kakalis (Newcastle University)
 
4:30-5:30pm Closing Remarks (Informatics Forum)
George Tsourous (Newcastle University) and Cinde Lee (RfPUK)