Lapdiang Artimai Syiem

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will enable a series of artist-led workshops that will bring practitioners from the northeast region of India together in an incubatory space of constructive dialogue and exchange. Lapdiang Artimai Syiem will be the Project Coordinator for this project. 

Lapdiang is a theatre practitioner based in Shillong, Meghalaya. She has a diploma in Physical Theatre from the Commedia School in Denmark and a post-graduate diploma from the National School of Drama in New Delhi. She has performed extensively in India and abroad. Among her many projects, she has collaborated with Welsh folk musicians, was awarded the Studio Residency in Basel by Pro Helvetia-Swiss Arts Council and has been an artist-in-residence at the North East Network Archival Residency Open Studio. She is the recipient of the Prince Claus Mentorship Award for 2023 for a project on Cultural and Artistic Responses to the Environmental Crisis. Given her experience, she is best placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

The peripheral region of North East India has been distinct from the rest of the country in terms of culture, identity and ethnicity. The region has for long been alienated from the Indian federation and for decades, the states of the northeast have lived in isolation. There is a lack of a cohesive network, not just in the area of governance, but also in terms of communities that have been cohabiting this region. There has been a lack of spaces nurturing incubation and a vibrant peer community that can foster critical and collaborative artistic discourse. 

In order to address this chasm, Lapdiang and her team organised the first edition of Strengthening Networks Among Artists in North East India (SNANE) in 2022. The workshop brought together contemporary artists from the North East, to engage in networking conversations about their practice and to address the challenges they face as artists working within and outside the region. Eleven artists from across the region participated in the workshop. Building on the first edition, Lapdiang and her team are now organising the second edition of SNANE, to further the ideas, objectives and questions that were set rolling in SNANE 2022. In the first edition, the larger challenges that artists from the states of the North East face were mapped out. In the current edition the focus will be on addressing some of the challenges. 

SNANE 2024 will be a three-day residential workshop scheduled to take place in September - October in Shillong. The workshop will focus on consolidating artistic practices, resource building and on envisioning collaborations in the northeast region of India. The workshop will involve seminars with artist presentations, discussions and critical peer to peer exchanges. Rather than having premeditated topics for the workshop, Lapdiang and her team envisage this more as a think tank, where artists can bring their concerns, offer their experiences and knowledge and contribute to the process.  

The workshop will comprise eight participants (12 participants in all including the organising team) from the northeast, eight of whom will be chosen through a combination of an open call process as well as recommendations from peers and resource persons. Artists who are building a personal reflective practice, are willing to engage in critical dialogues and have a vision for community building will be chosen. 

The outcome of the project will be the workshop and the building and strengthening of SNANE as an arts platform.  The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA along with the final reports will be photographs and video documentation of the three-day workshop along with process documentation. 

This project suitably addresses the broad framework of IFA's Arts Practice programme, and the Arts Platforms category in particular. This category has sought to create sustainable, supportive and enriching artist networks. A platform such as SNANE, IFA believes, could be the much-needed creative scaffolding that could spawn new artistic processes and collaborations that would in turn revitalise the arts and culture scape in the northeast.   

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This project is made possible with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment Fund.