For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Explorations, which will examine how the trauma of seeing violent imagery online including on social media can be sublimated through drawing by hand. As a critique of the desensitisation caused by the incessant consumption of online images including those of violence, the project will explore how the aspects of materiality and time in drawing these images by hand transform their resonance and politics. The outcomes of the project will be a series of drawings and lecture performances. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be a documentation of the drawings and lecture performances, along with screen recordings and videos created during the process. Project funds will pay for materials, consumables, professional fees, software subscriptions and honorarium.
For research to explore and compile the personal stories of a tenacious group of women producers, directors, writers and film technicians working in Mollywood in Kerala, a film industry dominated by men. The project will construct vivid and contrasting accounts of the Women in Cinema Collective as they defiantly challenge rules of commercial cinema in the state. The outcome of this project will be a manuscript for a book and an installation. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final reports will be the manuscript and audiovisual documentation generated during the fieldwork. Grant funds will pay for honorarium, professional fees, travel, food and living costs, equipment rental, consumables and an accountant’s fee.
For the implementation of a Foundation project by IFA, which will result in an audio-visual documentation titled Influential Shahirs: Narratives from Marathwada, an archive of eight shahirs – poet performers - four men and four women in Maharashtra. These shahirs inspired by Dr B R Ambedkar’s ideals of social revolution, have been a source of great inspiration for the masses and their songs have helped to sustain the Dalit movement in the rural areas of the region. Yet little is known about the poets or the compositions, as their work has been completely ignored by the mainstream establishment. This project seeks to recognise, acknowledge and archive their work and their role in the promotion and sustenance of a long socio-political movement. The outcome will be a series of eight articles and eight audio/video recordings of live performances. The Principal Investigator's deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the eight articles, the audio/video recordings and transcripts of the songs. This is a collaboration with the People’s Archive of Rural India - PARI. Project funds will pay for honorarium, travel, stationery and books and resources.
For a series of artistic engagements where womxn artists, rural and urban, will inhabit cyberspace at midnight for 25 nights, through live and pre-recorded videos of their performances, conversations and feminist readings. The theme of these sessions will be to celebrate occupying space and claiming agency. The outcomes of the project will be these sessions and a condensed five-minute video. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be the recordings of the 25 sessions and the five-minute video. Grant funds will pay for professional fees and honorarium.
For the excavation of decades of email archives, and interviews with the excavators, in an attempt to trace human journeys through its digital footprints over the years. The outcome of the project will be a creative essay made using excerpts of emails, images and graphic attachments. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be audio and video recordings of interviews and the creative essay. Grant funds will pay for professional fees, honorarium, materials, communication and stationery.
For a photography-based exploration of notions of nostalgia, temporality, hyperreality and alienation in the age of technology and the internet. Based on the itinerary for a seven-day tour to Japan that never happened due to the pandemic, the project uses multiple visual devices to photographically simulate the tour. The outcome of the project will be a set of still images. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be these still images. Grant funds will pay for honorarium, printing and scanning, materials and equipment hire.
For the making of a short film exploring urban India’s engagement with online dating. Drawing from interviews with men and women across different Indian cities, online research and the grantee’s personal experiences, the project intends to weave together stories of four protagonists and their quests on dating apps. The outcome of this grant will be the short film. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA along with the final report will also be the short film. Grant funds will pay for honorarium and professional fees.
For the making of a film-document based on the presence of seasonal migrant labourers in Mirya, a fishing village on the Konkan coast of Maharashtra. Since Mirya is the ancestral village of the filmmaker, it will also be a personal expression of an attempted dialogue, momentary friendships and precarious encounters through the camera, with the men who work as migrant labourers there. The outcome of the project will be the film-document. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be a high-resolution copy of the film-document on a hard disk, along with the footage, production stills, film deck and publicity materials. Grant funds will pay for professional fees, honorarium, equipment hire and consumables, travel and living costs, communication and stationery, and an accountant’s fee.
This grant supports research that will critically examine the transmuted Loknatya form developed by Dalit writer, playwright, performer and activist Lok-Shaheer Anna Bhau Sathe during the 1940s to the 60s. Tracing the history and evolution of the form, this project will enquire into Loknatya’s legacy, and its strengths and limitations as a tool for political and cultural activism. It will probe into the reasons behind its marginalisation as well as explore the ways in which it inspired many theatre and student movements including other Shaheers after Anna Bhau. The outcome of this project will be a script for a documentary film. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final reports will be audiovisual documentation of interviews with artists and experts from the field and the final script for the documentary film. Grant funds will pay for travel, food and living costs, honorarium, equipment rental, books and stationery, professional fee, internet and phone bills and an accountant’s fee.
For research towards a documentary film on the artistic legacy of the famous Gond Pradhan artist Jangarh Singh Shyam. The project will critically examine the artistic evolution that was spurred by Jangarh’s inventive artistic style, when the Gond Pradhan community moved from its traditional musical practices towards a modern, urban tradition of visual arts practice in Bhopal. Through an art-historical inquiry into the genesis and propagation of this shift, the project aims to explore the ‘urban’ fetish for the ‘tribal’ as the city continues to subsume a subaltern tribal identity into its cultural landscape. The outcome will be an audiovisual documentation of interviews with the artists and experts, a short video, and working drafts for the script for the documentary film. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the audiovisual documentation, video and working drafts of the script. Grant funds will pay for travel and living costs, equipment rental, professional fees, book purchase and an accountant’s fee.
