For research on Cham, a Tibetan Buddhist ritual, at the monasteries of Kye in the upper Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh, and Diskit in the Nubra Valley in Ladakh. Through a comparative study of the histories, sites, contemporary performances and material culture of the Cham, this project aims to unpack the notions of ‘tradition’ and ‘authenticity’ to understand the making of and the relationships between religious, cultural and political identities. The outcome of this project will be comprehensive photographic documentation and a series of essays on the transformations impacting the form and function of the Cham. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final reports will be a series of essays and photographic documentation. Grant funds will pay for honorarium, travel, food and living costs, professional fees, books, stationery and photocopying, internet, phone bills and SD cards and an accountant’s fee.
For the creation of an audio installation, following research on Indian classical music and geometrical principles. Borrowing on Michel Foucault’s theory of Heterotopology, the project aims to challenge the listening practices of Indian classical music based on performance and improvisation, by spatialising recorded and composed sounds. The outcome will be two installations, one live performance and one final presentation on the installations and the research. The Grantee's deliverables to IFA with the final report will be photo and video documentation, research materials along with detailed methodologies, the multi-channel audio files created for the installation pieces, exhibition design and other details about the installations. Grant funds will pay for professional fees, honorarium, material costs, travel costs, communication and outreach, space and equipment hire, and an accountant’s fee.
For a film on the experiences of women police officers from the batch inducted in 1976 from Delhi. The project focuses on questions around the power of the state, gender, body and empowerment, while presenting an intimate portrait of the undocumented history of labour and empathy within the police force during Emergency. The outcome will be a film. The Grantee's deliverables to IFA with the Final Report will be the film, production stills, audio interviews and their transcripts. Grant funds will pay for equipment hire, honorarium, travel, and an accountant’s fee.
For the creation of a book on a series of fictional mythologies based in the Polar Regions with Ice as its protagonist. Addressing the politics of ecology, language, and perspectives from the global south, the project will present Ice as an agent of resistance against European colonialism and techno-capitalist greed for natural resources from the poles. The outcome will be a book and a series of performances. The Grantee's deliverables to IFA with the final report will be copy of the manuscript, publication excerpts and audio-video documentation of the performances. Grant funds will pay for an honorarium, printing cost, performance cost, research assistance, professional fees, research books and maps, travel and living cost and an accountant’s fee.
For a foundation course in puppetry that seeks to train professional puppeteers in India. The course comes as the culmination of a series of workshops held with traditional and contemporary puppet masters over the past five years. Drawing upon and building on existing discourse around puppetry, this first-of-its-kind course seeks to create a pedagogic model that contextualises Indian puppetry traditions while offering an overview of puppetry from other parts of the world. The course will be implemented between October 2018 and April 2019. The Grantee's deliverables to IFA with the Final Report will be still and video documentation from the sessions, video documentation of the performances of the students, journals of the students, evaluation reports by facilitators and external evaluators, and a handbook on the course. Grant funds will pay for costs towards an honorarium, professional fees, project coordinator’s fee, local conveyance, travel, material and an accountant’s fee.
For the creation of a play based on Russian playwright Yevgeny Schwarz’s The Dragon, in multiple spoken Hindi languages. The play examines notions of human agency, gender, power, narrative, love and collective action in the context of self-determination and the individual’s relationship with the world. It is designed as a lightweight, durable and cost-effective mobile spectacle aimed at Hindi-speaking audiences. The outcome will be a performance. The Grantee's deliverables to IFA with the Final Report will be a translated script, a PDF document of the rehearsal process, publicity material, a media dossier and video recording of the performance. Grant funds will pay for costs towards professional fees, lights, music, costumes and material, equipment hire, refreshments, travel, documentation and an accountant’s fee.
For a series of workshops by a dance practitioner in five cities of India, pegged around the performance piece Queen-Size. The workshops are aimed at generating conversations around sexuality, desire and gender activism raising critical queries about Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code constituted in 1861 that criminalises homosexuality. The outcome of the project will be the five workshops. The Grantee's deliverables to IFA with the final report will be still photographs of the workshops, written comments of the audience, media reports and publicity material. Grant funds will pay for travel and living costs, professional fees, honorarium, production management cost, freight and local travel, workshop costs, and an accountant's fee.
For a practice-based study on the lives of the Lisus, an indigenous forest-dwelling community in the Namdapha National Park and Tiger Reserve located on the Indo-Myanmar border of Arunachal Pradesh. Through the use of photography and video, the project will explore alternative aesthetic approaches to the depiction of tribal culture while consciously moving away from exoticised colonial and anthropological visual constructions of tribal communities. Further, it will examine the construction of stereotypes and the politics of representation of marginalised communities. The outcome of this project will be a photography and audio-visual installation with podcasts and videos. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final reports will be images, materials from the audio-visual documentation and an accompanying manuscript. Grant funds will pay for costs towards an honorarium, professional fees, travel and living, labour, equipment rental and purchase, installation and an accountant’s fee.
For working with the Delhi Visual Archive housed in the Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK), Ambedkar University, Delhi. The Delhi Visual Archive is a repository of the visual history of Delhi, from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which includes a current holding of 4,500 digitised photographs. This fellowship supports research that will lead to a curated, interactive, virtual exhibition with experiential visual and audio inputs. In addition, the Fellow will create public programmes through the use of memory pods, using an app and the website, aimed to connect different communities and members of families with each other and the Centre for Community Knowledge. The outcome will include a virtual exhibition and the installation of memory pods. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be images, audio recordings, the memory pod/app activation, and a publication.
For working with the Assam State Museum, which was founded by the Kamrupa Anusandhan Samiti in 1940 and was taken over by the Government of Assam in 1953. Currently, the museum has 14 galleries with a collection of over 15,000 objects from the region. This fellowship to Shubhasree supports research to explore the period prior to the arrival of the Ahom rulers in 13th century Assam through the objects in the entire collection of the museum. The project aims to highlight the rich cultural legacies of the region, the Sanskritisation of Assam, and the ways in which regional histories like that of Assam, have played a major role in the larger mainstream histories of the country. The outcome will be a series of events like lectures, small exhibitions around objects that will then feed into a large temporary exhibition at the end of the fellowship period.
