Anupama Gowda and Pavan Kumar

This is another interdisciplinary collaboration between Anupama Gowda, a curator trained in the visual arts and Pavan Kumar, a mechanical engineer. Unlike Hansa and Jayachandra who have come together for the first time to work on the IFA-VITM fellowship, Anupama and Pavan work together and are both founder members of the Workbench Projects – a makerspace / FabLab based in Bangalore. Both of them have worked extensively with fellow makers, technologists and specialists in the industry.

For this fellowship, they will work on a large-scale exhibition called ‘The Mystery-Gen Gadgets’ that will trace the operating environment of technology that once was, to  what it is likely to become in the future. This exhibition will have several sections, each highlighting different aspects of gadgets and their technologies. The IFA fellowship will support the first section of the exhibition - ‘Early Gadgets’ - that will present the inventions and innovations in technological development for a century and a half,  beginning with the first remote switch controlled electricity that was invented in 1835 by Joseph Henry to the Brick Phone and the first Discman in 1984. Their research will focus on the design history of the gadgets, the cross-cultural perspectives connected with the design, production, use and disposal of gadgets. The outcomes will include an exhibition, workshops and talks that will explore the role and future of gadgets in contemporary culture. The Fellows’ deliverables to IFA with the final report will be process images, video recordings, and texts and publication if any.

These two fellowships together will reveal the close links that exist between art, culture, design, science and technology.

This fellowship is made possible with support from the Tata Trusts.