Hello Readers!

India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) is happy to be back with news on our work between mid-July and early October 2018! Scroll for exciting updates across our four programmes–Arts Research, Arts Practice, Arts Education, and the Archival and Museum Fellowships, Project 560, along with updates on events and an interview with an Arts Practice grantee from Manipur who works on music! We invite you to become a Friend of IFA as we celebrate 25 years, with an Annual Donation of Rs 5,000/– upwards!

We are delighted to have reached a special milestone of 25 years of existence, since our Trust Deed was signed on September 21, 1993! We thank Anmol Vellani the first Executive Director and all Trustees and Staff who started IFA off on this amazing journey. We would like to express our gratitude to the settlor Mrinal Sen and Founding Trustees Abhijit Basu and Aparna Sen (now Aparna Sinha), who also helped with the founding of IFA! We would also like to acknowledge the Trustee Mani Narayanswami who helped with the setting up of IFA in Bangalore.

Become a Friend of IFA and join us as we celebrate 25 years of our journey!

This landmark has only been made possible with your passionate support as artists, researchers, scholars, collaborators, and audiences! Over these past two decades, we have been able to facilitate more than 540 arts projects, disbursing Rs 24 crore across India. Join us as we continue on this exciting journey. Experience specially-curated events, engage in invigorating discussions and debates and exclusive sessions on the arts and culture. Connect with Artists, Musicians, Dancers, Actors, Researchers, Filmmakers, Performers, Educators, Archivists, and fellow art enthusiasts! These projects that you support will reach diverse publics—as books, films, performances, exhibitions, educational and archival materials and so much more!

To learn more write to menaka@indiaifa.org

Please visit our website or follow us on Twitter, facebook, and YouTube for regular updates!

We would love to hear from you—write to us at contactus@indiaifa.org with any feedback or query.

Warmly,
The IFA Team

In July 2018, a general note announcing Project 560 was shared along with a preview video capturing the various support possibilities in the newly articulated programme. In addition, the video was circulated as part of the announcement as well as independently, and was publicised widely on online and social media channels.

Under Project 560, Request for Proposals (RFP) were circulated under three categories – for Neighbourhood Engagements, Year-long Series of Curated Artistic and Cultural Engagements and Arts Projects in Research and Practice were circulated. We received nine applications under Neighbourhood Engagements, and support for one engagement was finalised. Twelve proposals have been received under Curated Engagements and 20 proposals have been received under Arts Projects in Research and Practice. Grant awards will be announced following the recommendations of the evaluation panel that will meet in November 2018. Stay tuned!

Project 560 is partnered by Citi India.

The Arts Research programme at IFA supports research into the histories and expressions of artistic practices in India. Under this programme, scholars, researchers and practitioners receive support for projects that investigate marginalised or relatively unexplored areas; create spaces for dialogue between theory and practice; offer new readings and frameworks for artistic practices; and use interdisciplinary approaches to break new conceptual ground. At IFA we encourage projects in Indian languages other than English, in order to contribute towards discourse-building in multiple language contexts.

We invited Request for Proposals for this year a few months ago in April 2018, and the deadline was in July 2018. After intense discussions, we now look forward to an evaluation session with experts next month in November 2018, to study the shortlisted proposals, and then make the grants! We look forward to introducing you to the new grantees in the next newsletter!

The Arts Research programme for the years 2017 to 2019 is supported by Titan Company Limited.

The Arts Practice programme supports critical practice in the arts. It encourages practitioners working across artistic disciplines to question existing notions through their practice. We are delighted to introduce you the recipients of four new grants – a theatre practitioner, a scholar, and two filmmakers:

Theatre practitioner Bikram Ghosh will create a play, based on the 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.

Researcher and screenwriter Ranjini Krishnan will create an experimental video art piece to be included in an installation. Drawing from experiences of women from Kerala in the nuptial chamber, the video attempts to address the psychic significance of the ‘wedding night’ in their lives. It pushes the boundaries between the academic and artistic realms of cinema, art and psychology.

Filmmaker Wanphrang Diengdoh will make a feature length fiction film titled Lorni - The Flaneur. The project attempts to question the formation of Khasi identity, challenge the aesthetics and language of mainstream commercial cinema and pose an alternative to the industrial model of revenue in favour of indigenous experimental filmmakers.

Filmmaker Amit Dutta will create a mixed-media animation film based on an essay by Steven B Gerrard, titled Wittgenstein Plays Chess with Duchamp or How Not to Do Philosophy: Wittgenstein on Mistakes of Surface and Depth. The project attempts to push the boundaries of cinema by juxtaposing it with ideas from philosophy, visual art, chess, mathematics, geometry, linguistics and psychology.

Programme Officers Sumana Chandrashekar and Shubham Roy Choudhury
talk about the Arts Practice programme and how you can apply in the video above

The Arts Practice programme welcomes queries and applications through the year!We look forward to receiving your proposal soon! Please send your proposal in any Indian language, including English, soon! Visit our website for more information or write to shubham@indiaifa.org or sumana@indiaifa.org

The Arts Education programme titled Kali Kalisu, (‘Learn and Teach’ in Kannada), focusses on integrating arts with the curriculum in government schools in Karnataka. It attempts to achieve this objective through grants made to artists and teachers; and facilitating training workshops for teachers and administrators. After going through proposals received from the call circulated in May 2018, we have finalised grants to five artists and three teachers. Read about their diverse projects, covering movement and science, theatre and puppetry, playback theatre and more, which will be carried out in a range of districts across the State:

Artist Kavya will conduct a series of activities related to creative physical movements with fourth and fifth grade students of the Government Lower Primary School in Muddapura Karenahalli village, Bangalore district. This project aims to develop imaginative and innovative skills among students through the exploration of movements and its applications in their language and science curriculum.

Teacher Madhukar ML will facilitate a series of arts-based, exploratory learning modules at the Government Higher Primary School in Gumballi village in Chamarajanagar district, where the students, teachers and the local community become co-learners. The project will bring together three schools of a cluster and engage with students of the eighth grade with two art forms – theatre and puppetry. There will be an attempt to understand the dialogic relationship between these art forms and bring that sensibility into classroom learning through their curriculum.

Artist Prashanth Kumar will conduct a wide-ranging engagement with eighth grade students of the Government High School at Akkihebbalu village in Mandya district, to learn the concepts and applications of intimate theatre in order to develop metamorphic stories based on texts from their curriculum.

Artist Santosh DD will facilitate a wide-ranging engagement with fourth to seventh grade students of the Government Higher Primary School in Dindaguru village in Hassan district with a local folk art form – Somana Kunitha – a ritualistic masked dance, prevalent in this region. The students will train in this form through workshops and apply it in the texts in their curriculum.

Artist Sayed Sadiq S (Riyaz Sihimoge) will conduct a wide-ranging engagement with eighth grade students of the Government Higher Primary School near Kuvempunagar in Mysore district to learn playback theatre and its applications with texts from their syllabus. Students will be exposed to this interactive and improvisational form of theatre that will enable them to build arguments and dialogues around various themes and ideas.

Artist Yuvaraja HP will facilitate a wide-ranging engagement with students of the Government Kannada Boys Modern School in Kunigal taluk near Tumkuru district to develop a theatre script by exploring the history of their school which has recently completed 88 years. The students will collate stories about the school from alumni, teachers and community members to build this production. Alongside this, students will also be introduced to the folk dance form Kolata which they will explore through texts in their syllabus.

Teacher Annappa H Ontimaalagi will conduct a series of arts-based experiential learning modules at the Government Higher Primary School in Aaladahalli village in Shivamogga district. The project will involve students across classes in various visual, theatrical and mapping activities centred on the lakes in and around the region.

Teacher Prakasha Moodithaya will facilitate a series of arts-based experiential learning modules at the Government Higher Primary School, in Papemajalu village in Dakshina Kannada district. In this project, mathematics will be taught by using theatre techniques and the form of Yakshagana-Talamaddale, popular in this region. Theatre scripts and riddles will be built around concepts and themes in mathematics.

The above projects seek to involve local languages, knowledge systems, and art forms to enable a connection between the curriculum and lived experiences of the students. This ensures participation of the community within which the school functions and creates multiple stakeholders invested in the future of education.

Teachers’ Training Programme in Madhugiri district

As part of our effort to engage teachers and artists in the educationally under-represented districts of Madhugiri, Kolar and Davanagere, we have been able to facilitate two sets of three-day capacity building training programmes for principals, administrators and teachers in Davanagere and Madhugiri districts, so far. Workshops were held to integrate theatre, literary and visual arts, and local cultural forms with the school curriculum. After the first session in Davanagere in June 2018, the second training programme was held in Pavagada village in Madhugiri district from July 24 to 26, 2018, with 40 teachers from six taluks in participation. Through this training, we were able to reach 200 peer teachers, 138 villages, 4,435 students and 11,005 families. Here, teachers innovatively used waste material as props as they enacted different roles and themes. The third training programme is scheduled to be held in November 2018 in Kolar district.

Teachers’ training programme in Pavagada village in Madhugiri district in July 2018

Kala Yatra in Honnavara, Haliyala and Sidlaghatta

This component is designed to enable grantees to share their work with schools and the local communities. Through this, we hope that together, they will develop comprehensive approaches for integrating the arts with the school curricula, strengthening arts instruction and improving the students’ academic performance. This experiential ‘Yatra’ also realises the importance of discovering a new environment and introducing participants to sustainable engagement. To facilitate this, four taluks will host 40 meaningful interactions between grantee teachers and artists and members of visiting schools. Each ‘Yatra’ includes a theoretical (slides, case presentation, talk) and practical session each (group exercises, personal activities). Between July and September 2018, three such ‘yatras’ have been completed in ten government schools each – in Honnavara, Haliyala and Sidlaghatta regions.

Kala Yatra, designed to enable grantees to travel and share their arts education projects with different school communities, at Haliyala taluk, Uttara Kannada district in August 2018 | Image Credit: Jayaprakash M

The first such Kala Yatra took place in Honnavara taluk, Uttara Kannada district from July 05 to 07, 2018, the second in Haliyala taluk, Uttara Kannada district from August 02 to 04, 2018, and the third in Sidlaghatta taluk, Chikkaballapura district from September 07 to 09, 2018. In all, we were able to reach out to 188 teachers, 4,353 students, 101 villages and 7,850 families.

The Archival and Museum Fellowships initiative seeks to provide practitioners and researchers with the opportunity to generate new, critical and creative approaches to reading, seeing, and interacting with materials in archives and museums. It is also invested in energising these spaces as platforms for dialogue and discourse, to create awareness and increase public engagement.

New Museum and Archival Fellowships announced

In August 2018, we invited applications for two diverse Museum Fellowships – in collaboration with Goa Chitra – a cluster of three museums comprising Goa Chitra, Goa Chakra and Goa Cruti, and, with Barpeta District Museum in Barpeta, Assam. The fellowship with Goa Chitra is designed to engage with local communities and the history of Goa through objects, texts, and oral histories that have been collected from the older members of the community. The fellowship with Barpeta District Museum is programmed to curate a permanent exhibition at the Museum, drawn from its collection of Neo-Vaishnavita monasteries or satras. We received 17 proposals for fellowship with Goa Chitra, and seven for the fellowship with Barpeta Museum, which are currently under evaluation.

We also invited applications for an Archival Fellowship in collaboration with the Raman Research Institute, Bangalore in early October 2018. The Fellowship is designed to offer creative practitioners to work with a range of materials from the archive of Sir CV Raman, in order to design and curate a permanent display. The deadline for this fellowship is October 26, 2018. Apply Soon!

We look forward to introducing you to the recipients of the Fellowships and their projects in our next newsletter – stayed tuned!

The Archival and Museum Fellowship initiative for the years 2015 to 2018 is supported by Tata Trusts.

back to top

We organise grant showcases that take the form of presentations, performances, panel discussions, film screenings and more, for multiple audiences across the country. These grant showcases help create dialogue and in turn, become exciting spaces of discovery and discussion. Our staff also participated in various seminars to talk about our programmes, projects and the vision of grantmaking and arts philanthropy. Below is an account of these activities over the last few months:

Exhibition on little magazines in Kolkata

An exhibition of works on Bengali Little Magazines, produced during a two-phase workshop held in Uttarapara, Hooghly in West Bengal was organised by editor, publisher, and writer Susnato Chowdhury from August 01 to 04, 2018 at Boi-Chitra in Kolkata. This event was also accompanied by the release of a book titled Mudran Karmashala: Little Magazine: File Copy and a special section dedicated to Darjeeling’s neglected magazines and their untold histories. Read an extensive interview on the exhibition in Scroll.in!

Susnato Chowdhury received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Practice programme, with part support from Biocon Foundation.

A visitor at an exhibition of works on Bengali Little Magazines, organised by editor, publisher, and writer Susnato Chowdhury at Boi-Chitra Gallery in Kolkata in August 2018

Talk and workshop on gadgets in Bangalore

Gadgets in the Times of Circular Economy, a talk by Jayashankara Aradhya, advisor and consultant, and Head of MS Operations, Ericsson India, followed by a Repair and Repay Workshop was organised on September 01, 2018 by art consultant Anupama Gowda and engineer Pavan Kumar. These events, which took place at Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum (VITM), Bangalore, are the first in a series which will lead up to the Talking Devices Exhibition Series which will open at VITM in February 2019, curated by Anupama and Pavan. The talk by Jayashankara Aradhya focussed on the ‘take, make, and dispose’ industrial model of the current gadget industry. He also brought in the restorative and regenerative aspect of the circular economy. The workshop invited people to bring in their broken gadgets in order to give them a new life.

Anupama Gowda and Pavan Kumar received an Archival and Museum Fellowship from India Foundation for the Arts, in collaboration with Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, Bangalore, made possible with support from Tata Trusts.

Presentations on Arts Education in Bangalore

Teacher Nagaraja M Hudeda, singer Mohan Kumar N and visual artist Arpita RG presented on their projects on writing and language; dance and music; and community food practices and drawing, on September 05, 2018 at The Courtyard, Bangalore. They shared their experiences and stories of their projects which connect classroom learning, local art forms, and the lived experiences of students and the surrounding environment. Read an article on their presentations in The Hindu!

Nagaraja M Hudeda, Mohan Kumar N and Arpita RG received grants from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Education programme, made possible with support from Citi India. Arpita RG received part support from Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore.

Visual artist Arpita RG, singer Mohan Kumar N and teacher Nagaraja M Hudeda talk about their individual arts education projects with school children in Karnataka at The Courtyard in September 2018

Presentation on photographs in Hyderabad

Imagined Homeland—a counterpose to the colonial-anthropological representation of tribes in India, a presentation on photographs by lens-based visual artist Sharbendu De took place on September 07, 2018 at Lamakaan, Hyderabad. Sharbendu shared his photographic and video work on the lives of the Lisus, an indigenous forest-dwelling community located on the Indo-Myanmar border of Arunachal Pradesh, through an understanding of the stereotypes and politics of representation of marginalised communities. The presentation was followed by a conversation between Sharbendu De and cultural geographer and executive director, Hyderabad Urban Lab, Anant Maringanti. Read a detailed interview with De in the Feature Shoot!

Sharbendu De received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts under the Arts Research programme, made possible with support from Titan Company Limited.

Photography exhibition, website launch, and a city walk in New Delhi

Delhi Dialogues, an exhibition curated by architect and educator Bhavin Shukla and Memories of Delhi/Dilli ki Yaadein, an online archive constructed by scholar Koyna Tomar were launched together on September 14, 2018 at Ambedkar University, Karampura Campus, New Delhi. Bhavin’s Delhi Dialogues, an exhibition of photographs of everyday life in Delhi from the 1930s to the 1990s, drawn from the Delhi Visual Archive housed at the Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK), Ambedkar University, Delhi, was on till September 20, 2018. Koyna’s website project is an online archive for CCK’s textual, audio, and visual collections on the memories of Delhi. In addition, exhibition designer Vaibhavi Kowshik in collaboration with landscape designer Kush Sethi conducted a walk on September 16, 2018 in Sanjay Van, which explored the area’s rich biodiversity, visualised its scale from the highest vantage points and created new memories of living in the city of Delhi.

Bhavin Shukla, Koyna Tomar, and Vaibhavi Kowshik received Archival and Museum Fellowships from India Foundation for the Arts, in collaboration with the Centre for Community Knowledge, Ambedkar University, Delhi, made possible with support from Tata Trusts.

Architect Bhavin Shukla curated Delhi Dialogues, an exhibition of photographs of everyday life in Delhi from the 1930s to the 1990s at Ambedkar University, Karampura Campus, New Delhi in September 2018

Exhibition in Kolkata

Stereoscopic Narratives, an exhibition organised by Sumona Chakravarty along with collaborators Varshita Khaitan and Nilanjan Das of Hamdasti Collective, took place at the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan in Kolkata from September 15 to 22, 2018. The exhibition brought together both the converging and diverging perspectives of the artists and community collaborators who developed Chitpur Local, a public art project in and around the Chitpur neighbourhood in Kolkata. For this, the gallery was transformed into a backstage space for the Tales of Chitpur Festival, with propos and set-pieces turned into six installations, each representing different aspects of the journey.

Sumona Chakravarty along with collaborators Varshita Khaitan and Nilanjan Das of Hamdasti Collective, Kolkata, received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Practice programme.

Documentary film festival in Bhubaneshwar

The Indian Documentary Film Festival Bhubaneshwar organised by the Film Society of Bhubaneshwar took place from September 28 to 30, 2018 at the Odissi Research Centre in Bhubaneshwar, in association with India Foundation for the Arts, Vikalp and Kerala Chalachitra Academy. The film festival featured a Masterclass on film direction, scriptwriting, and film appreciation with filmmakers and IFA grantees Q aka Qaushiq Mukherjee and Kamal Swaroop. A number of IFA supported films in different languages and covering a range of subjects such as music, gender, labour songs and mural paintings, were screened. These included Pala by Gurvinder Singh; Rasikan Re by Pooja Kaul; Out of Thin Air and Gali by Shabani Hassanwalia and Samreen Farooqi; The Other Song by Saba Dewan; Down the Rabbit Hole by Ekta Mittal; A Very Old Man with Winged Sandals by Yashaswini Raghunandan; I, Dance by Sonya Fatah and Rajiv Rao; Breathed Upon Paper by Ayswarya Sankaranarayanan; Nabarun by Q aka Qaushiq Mukherjee; Kho Ki Pa Lu (‘Up, Down and Sideways’) by Ishwar Srikumar and Anushka Meenakshi; Kitte Mil Ve Mahi (‘Where the Twain shall Meet’) by Ajay Bhardwaj; Rangabhoomi by Kamal Swaroop; and Wall Stories by Shashwati Talukdar.

Filmmaker and IFA grantee Qaushiq Mukherjee conducted a Masterclass on film direction, scriptwriting, and film appreciation at the Indian Documentary Film Festival in Bhubaneshwar in September 2018

Presentations on performance in Mumbai

Navigating gender in Yakshagana: changing aesthetics – presentations by theatre practitioner Sharanya Ramprakash and researcher Kruti R took place on October 06, 2018 at G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture, Mumbai. Sharanya presented on her work Akshayambara, a theatrical production that explores the position of women, role of women characters and streevesha (female impersonation) within the male-dominated practice of Yakshagana. Kruti presented on her research, examining the differences between the performances of prasangas in Yakshagana that are presented in shorter durations and those that continue through the night.

Sharanya Ramprakash received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Practice programme, with part support from Voltas Limited.

Kruti R received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Research programme.

Members of our staff travelled far and wide to participate in discussions on arts and philanthropy.

Menaka Rodriguez currently serves as a Mentor-in-Residence for Resource Mobilisation with the IDEX Global Fellowship, a six-month fellowship experience designed for aspiring social intrapreneurs. She had the opportunity to interact with six Fellows from India, Germany, and the United States, and as part of the programme, also led a day-long workshop on August 23, 2018, exploring subjects and themes such as resource mobilisation, the art of asking, donor engagement, and building a resource mobilisation strategy.

Menaka Rodriguez, Head, Resource Mobilisation and Outreach, IFA (centre) led a day-long workshop in Bangalore on resource mobilisation in August 2018 for six Fellows from different countries including India

Theatre practitioner Sunil Shanbag was felicitated for being awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi on August 30, 2018 at the Sahitya Rangabhoomi Pratishtan in Pune. Executive Director Arundhati Ghosh was invited to speak on his contribution to the world of theatre. Read an article by Arundhati commemorating his decades’ long work in The Wire!

Arundhati Ghosh facilitated Artistic Connections, a conversation with various arts practitioners from the arts, theatre, literature, art, dance, film and music – Ravi Kashi, Prakash Belawadi, Amandeep Sandhu, Miti Desai, Gautam Sonti and Abhijit Tambe on September 14, 2018 at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru. This was organised as part of the SG Vasudev retrospective exhibition titled Inner Resonance: A Return to Sama and his involvement with the arts.

Arundhati Ghosh delivered the keynote address on challenges of community art projects as part of Sambhashane: The Bengaluru Dialogues on Citizens and Community Media, a series for media and art practitioners, on September 26, 2018 at Atta Galatta, Bangalore.

Menaka Rodriguez, Head, Resource Mobilisation and Outreach and Arundhati Ghosh conducted The Art of Asking, a day-long workshop on learning from experiences in Resource Mobilisation in the Arts and Culture on October 05, 2018 at The Courtyard, Bangalore. Thirty four participants across experiences and disciplines from different parts of India, participated in the workshop.

Menaka Rodriguez, Head, Resource Mobilisation and Outreach, IFA (right) and Arundhati Ghosh, Executive Director, IFA (left) conducted The Art of Asking, a day-long workshop on learning from experiences in resource mobilisation in the Arts and Culture in October 2018 at The Courtyard, Bangalore

ARTS SERVICES
The Arts Services initiative at India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) enables corporates and organisations to support specific arts projects and experiences that we see value in, and which are close to their hearts. This initiative is not part of our grant programmes, but arises out of our impulse to connect supporters with artists in collaborative projects. It also enables us to raise more resources for our grantmaking.

We will be happy to work with you on diverse Arts Services, which include the conceptualisation, design and management of arts courses, talks, and workshops and for different audiences. For more details on the Arts Services provided by IFA please write to menaka@indiaifa.org

CATALYST
Catalyst—Arts, An Inspiration for Excellence is an initiative that continues to bring to corporate houses, a wide range of accomplished artists from the worlds of theatre, literature, visual and performing arts, to share their creative journeys and pursuit of excellence. Catalyst also includes a version that can be customised to offer arts workshops along with talks.

Catalyst is a 12–month long engagement, with one session each by eight accomplished maestros including Raghu Rai, Malavika Sarukkai, Aditi Mangaldas, BN Goswamy, Ratna Pathak Shah, Sanjna Kapoor, Romi Khosla, Arundhati Nag, Jitish Kallat, Atul Dodiya, Rahul Ram, Varun Grover, Benjamin Gilani, and Astad Deboo.

This quarter we collaborated with a number of partners in Bangalore to offer various arts engagements wherein diverse artists and scholars shared their creative journeys. Recently, we had puppeteer Anurupa Roy at Biocon Limited on July 27; architect Romi Khosla and actor Ratna Pathak Shah at The Hilton for Titan Company Limited, as part of their Rendezvous with Excellence series on July 31; actor Ratna Pathak Shah at Sasken Technologies Limited on August 01; a theatre workshop by Kirtana Kumar at Sasken Technologies Limited on August 29; theatre practitioner Sanjna Kapoor at The Lalit Ashok for the Himatsingka group on September 14; art historian BN Goswamy at Sasken Technologies Limited on September 21; and theatre practitioner Arundhati Nag at 3M as part of the launch of their Development Month to talk about “Growth and Transformation” on September 24, 2018.

Theatre practitioner Sanjna Kapoor of Junoon shared her creative journey as part of Catalyst, for the Himatsingka group at The Lalit Ashok, Bangalore in September 2018

For more details on Catalyst or if you would like to bring this programme to your company, please write to Joyce Gonsalves at joyce@indiaifa.org

SMART (Strategic Management in the Art of Theatre)
This year, a different version – SMART 2.0 will travel to various cities across the country to share learnings and experiences with the theatre community.

Upcoming Events

For exciting upcoming events featuring grant showcases across the country, stay tuned! We look forward to seeing you at the following events – do spread the word!

Please join us for the celebration of the launch of The IFA Archive and explore the idea of the archive as a space for memory and history – with a Dastangoi performance by Kafeel Jafri and music by the Sarjapur Blues Band at 07:00 PM on Thursday, October 25, 2018 at the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore! The opening of The IFA Archive to the public, in its physical and digital forms, will uncover this world of little-known chronicles and scholarly reflections on the arts and culture across India in a multitude of artistic forms and languages by practitioners and researchers.

Don’t miss the launch of The IFA Archive at 07:00 PM on Thursday, October 25, 2018 at the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore

Kindly RSVP by writing to menaka@indiaifa.org

The IFA Archive is built with support from the Lohia Foundation.

A paper prototype workshop to build gadgets for the future will be conducted for children above age of 12 years. This will be facilitated by art consultant Anupama Gowda and engineer Pawan Kumar on October 20, 2018 at the Visvesvaraya Industrial & Technological Museum (VITM), Bangalore. This workshop is designed to inspire children to build objects along new lines of thinking – no longer on the ‘take, make and dispose’ model, but rather, on the ‘re-use, restore and rejuvenate’ model. This event is the second in a series which will lead up to the Talking Devices Exhibition Series which will open at VITM in February 2019, curated by Anupama and Pavan.

Anupama Gowda and Pavan Kumar received an Archival and Museum Fellowship from India Foundation for the Arts, in collaboration with Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, Bangalore, made possible with support from Tata Trusts.

For more details on these events, do sign up for our emails here, follow us on facebook or Twitter for regular updates, or simply tune into our website at www.indiaifa.org/events

back to top

Arts Practice
Request for Proposals from practitioners
[Open All Year]
For more information, write to the Programme Officers Sumana Chandrashekar at sumana@indiaifa.org and Shubham Roy Choudhury at shubham@indiaifa.org

Archival and Museum Fellowships
Raman Research Institute, Bangalore
[Deadline: Friday, October 26, 2018]
For more information, write to the Programme Officer Suman Gopinath at suman@indiaifa.org

Experience the Joy of Exploration. Become a Friend of IFA with an Annual Donation of Rs 5,000/– upwards!

Become a Friend of IFA and set out on an exciting journey with IFA with an Annual Donation of Rs 5,000/– through the many worlds of the arts and culture! As a Friend of IFA, you along with 400+ Friends of IFA, will experience the arts and culture through specially- curated events, engage in discussions and debates, and enjoy exclusive sessions on the arts and culture! Connect with artists, musicians, dancers, actors, researchers, filmmakers, performers, educators, archivists and fellow art enthusiasts!

As a Friend of IFA, your passionate support will bring to life projects that examine our pasts, enable us to make collective sense of our present, and dream of shared and vibrant futures, together. Your contribution will help projects reach diverse publics—as books, films, performances, educational materials, exhibitions and more!

IFA has been able to facilitate more than 540 arts projects, disbursing Rs 24 crore over two decades across India—because of you. All these arts projects are made possible because of your support. Every donation you make helps us extend support to the field.

To learn more write to menaka@indiaifa.org

To make your contribution online, click here (please do not use special characters ~,!,@,#,$,%,^,&,*,(,),., while filling the form)

To make your contribution by cheque, click here

We look forward to your support.

back to top

Painters, Poets, Performers: The Patuas of Bengal

Have you picked up your copy of Painters, Poets, Performers: The Patuas of Bengal by Ritu Sethi yet? A visually rich and informative book on the history and evolution of Patachitra—literally, ‘painting on cloth’; it provides an outline of this narrative tradition of pictorial storytelling and its multi-talented, polymath makers in Bengal and Odisha.
Please click here to order your copy for Rs 500/- (exclusive of courier charges) now!

This book is supported by Infosys Foundation.

Have you picked up your copy of Painters, Poets, Performers: The Patuas of Bengal by Ritu Sethi yet?

Other Publications

Embroidering Futures: Repurposing the Kantha
In 2012, we published Embroidering Futures: The Repurposing of Kantha, edited by Ritu Sethi. This book traces this journey of kantha from its origins to its current avatar, through the tales and recollections of collectors, inheritors, designers and producers of this unique piece of embroidered cloth. The publication is now available to read online. Click here to read the PDF for free!

This book was supported by Infosys Foundation.

ArtConnect
We also have other interesting publications to offer, including back issues of ArtConnect, a magazine on the arts and culture and postcards showcasing our grantees' work:

Between 2008 and 2013, IFA published 13 issues of ArtConnect featuring lively, compelling writing and artwork across a host of disciplines and genres, from female impersonators in Company Theatre in Kannada; Marathi Little Magazines; the forgotten lives and songs of the tawai’if in Benaras; violence in Kannada cinema; gender and the Indian documentary; to the visual culture of early Urdu magazines! Please note that while each issue is priced at Rs 100/–, Volume 7 is Rs 150/– You can avail of special anniversary discounts on Limited Edition collections. All the proceeds from the sale of publications go back into grantmaking!

IFA Postcards
If you like the work we do, this set of ten IFA Postcards becomes a memento. Gift it to your friends and share and support the arts. These postcards, which feature a selection of exciting IFA projects, can be ordered at a nominal and suggested donation of Rs 200/– Your donation amount goes back into grantmaking. Order a set now!

To know more, write to contactus@indiaifa.org

back to top

IFA: Please tell us about your journey in this project and the people you met.

Akhu: The project has taken me deeper into my roots and the past of my ancestors. Through my journey I have come across noteworthy literatures and folklores which I would never be able to glean from publications. I have met people who started museums to preserve the stories of their pasts and use it to educate coming generations. I have met poets who sacrificed their lives writing about the land which will never remember them. Walking the paddy fields of Vanugach, Bangladesh, which are owned by Manipuris for centuries, I felt at home. I had the luxury to sit with them and listen to their stories. I also met many people including folk singers, poets, writers, teachers, social workers, student activists, revivalists, publishers etc. I have come across like-minded people in my journey and we are in the process of starting something together to bring us closer through various art forms. And my journey to Assam took me to the Barak and Surma rivers in Bangladesh. Just as the history of Manipuris in Assam and Bangladesh are connected and intertwined, so are these two rivers. These Manipuris have been settling for two centuries on the banks of these rivers.

Akhu received a grant to create a musical performance based on notions of Manipuri identity in the literature and folklore of the Meitei diaspora

IFA: Do elucidate on the unwritten histories of Manipur that have emerged from your journeys.

Akhu: These are stories of Manipuris in Bangladesh and Assam:

A small village named Banubil in Bangladesh had witnessed two peasants’ movements – in 1900 and 1930. The movement in 1930 is still remembered today. The meiteis of Banubil and other nearby villages were subjects of one zamindar. Because of the exploitation of the meiteis by the zamindar, the peasants initiated the movement. The movement, which drew the attention of the British Parliament and the peasants of the Banubil, won the case against the Zamindar. The movement was later known as ‘Kishan Praja Andolan Banubil’. Oja AK Sheram, a writer, poet, social worker shared this story with me during my trip. He has written a Bengali play based on this movement of 1930.

During my conversation with Oja Thokchom Bihswanath, a poet, writer and cultural activist from Assam, he mentioned that the first Meitei to play football was Sorokhaibam Thambou, the brother of Sorokhaibam Lalit who was a contemporary of the Manipuri politician, social activist and sportsperson Hijam Irabot. Thambou was a student of Johnstone High School in Imphal. It was also the time the Meiteis were Hinduised. One day, Thambou entered a bungalow which was occupied by the British. He requested the British agent for a football, while he was having breakfast. Thambou probed the agent, ‘What are you eating?’ The agent replied, “it is deer meat, come and join me”. Thambou replied, “To even retrieve a football from you, I will have to leave my clothes at the gate and bathe. And here, you are asking me to eat deer meat”. This story also proves how people used to seriously adhere to Vaishnavism as a religion. Even when we were growing up we had to change our clothes to enter my great-grandmother’s kitchen as she was a Vaishnavite.

Oja also mentioned how great Bhagyachandra was as a king, It was during his time that Ras Lila, a classical dance form, was invented. Further, there are oral narratives about the king capturing a wild elephant to establish his greatness. But Oja said, “I don’t think it ever happened as it seems quite impossible for one man to capture a huge wild elephant. If it really happened there should be a mention of it in Assamese history, but there is none.”

There are many such stories and oral traditions that I have come across during my journey. And it sheds some light on an understanding of our own history and folklores of Manipuris. Most importantly their stories showcase the resilience and struggle as a minority in different places which actually would be a good lesson for Manipur to learn.

Through extensive field trips and interviews, Akhu explores the histories, stories, and songs of the Meitei community and its subsequent migration

IFA: What imaginations of Manipur exist in the diaspora?

Akhu: Before my journey began, my understanding of the diaspora was through their literatures only. After my trip to various places in Assam and Bangladesh I realised my earlier understanding of Manipuris outside Manipur was somewhat not clear. In Bangladesh I have met Manipuris who do not want to be known as Manipuri Diaspora. They have an affinity towards Manipur but not at the cost of giving up their identity as citizens of Bangladesh. It is also felt in some of the patriotic Manipuri songs I heard in Sylhet. Yet all of this is contradictory in my personal thoughts on being Indian. I was born in Manipur which is supposedly part of India and I have never felt like ‘Indian’ for many reasons.

Some of the Manipuri writers and poets in Assam and Bangladesh have in their writings reflected on social issues and various conflicts in Manipur. Of course they want Manipur to be a peaceful kingdom.

Also some Manipuris located both in Assam and Bangladesh have deep expectations from the Manipur Government to start certain policies for them to access their native land easily. In addition, writer Khoirom Indrajit shared that Manipur should have mark a day called ‘Seven Years Devastation Remembrance Day’ to celebrate and honour the Manipuris in Bangladesh, Assam, Tripura, Burma etc. He believes this would bring us all together and the bonding would become stronger.

Seven Years Devastation (1819-1826) was the period when the Burmese invaded Manipur and depopulated the land. Because of which, many Manipuris ran away to nearby villages, hills, Cachar, Sylhet etc.

The project took Akhu deeper into his roots and the past of his ancestors

IFA: Please elaborate on the songs and collaborations of this endeavour.

Akhu: There are six songs already penned on my experience and journey. I am trying to add one more song to make it a complete album. This is going to be a concept album, one of its kind. All the songs are interrelated lyrically and musically. The introduction of the album starts with the Burmese invasion of Manipur, followed by the depopulation of the society, displacement, settlement in Barak Valley, etc. Basically it is a narrative.

Lyrically, I am inspired by a couple of poets and writers. The late writer Nongthombam Kunjamohan’s short story “Elisha amagi mahao” (Taste of a Hilsha) and poet Yumnam Illabanta’s poem “Barak Turel Nangdi Yamna Phajei” (Barak River, You are very pretty) are some literary pieces which have inspired me to write some songs on the Barak River.

I have been collaborating with folk musicians largely. I am also striving to tease out the aggression in folk music instruments as some songs demand it. I have also hired other session artists such as a bass guitar player, drummer and keyboard player.

For his project, Akhu met many people including folk singers, poets, writers, teachers, social workers, student activists, revivalists, publishers

IFA: For you, the personal has always been political. Do tell us how this has been carried forth in your project.

Akhu: This project, though a very personal one, is not the personal story that I am looking for. I am looking for a very broad answer to the question “Who is a Manipuri?” My personal understanding of life and politics is inspired often by sociopolitical issues around me. And I reflect upon it through my music and writings which are very personal. In this project my journey is personal but the experiences that I have had in the last eight months through stories and people heard and met, are political. These are the stories of patriots, alienation, peasants, displacement, longing, nostalgia, love, etc. Most of the songs that I am working on now are both personal and political. But I don’t think an outsider would miss the personal side once the songs are ready. Because I am just a storyteller here, with my own twists and turns.

back to top

India Foundation for the Arts makes grants to artists, scholars, and institutions through the year. For these exciting projects to take shape, we have to continuously raise funds. We would like to thank our donors who have supported us and made many projects possible in the past few months.

We would especially like to acknowledge Titan Company Limited for support towards the Arts Research programme and Plan India for support towards the Arts Education programme, in this period.

You can support and engage with IFA in many ways – by becoming a Friend of IFA or a Donor Patron or even by sponsoring our fundraising events and by spreading the word about IFA. Every contribution counts.

back to top