Hello Readers!

India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) is delighted to share with you a video that brings together four unique arts projects, supported by us, exploring how power dynamics around gender play out in India. Through multimedia, dance, music and performance, these projects expand and disrupt the gender discourse through critical enquiries in myriad artistic forms. These projects, like others drawn from The IFA Archive, attempt to fill some gaps and reveal voices from the margins that were lost, silenced or ignored.

IFA continues to support journeys by artists, teachers, scholars and researchers to uncover little-known stories and alternative narratives. We look forward to sharing videos on other themes and artistic forms such as labour, caste, community and photography soon! We invite you to learn more about these and similar projects on our website and our facebook page.

Scroll for exciting updates across our five programmes—Project 560, Arts Research, Arts Practice, Arts Education and the Archival and Museum Fellowships including events, such as an exhibition and performances. Scroll to the bottom to read Point of View featuring an engaging interview with Bhavin Shukla and Koyna Tomar, Archival Fellows. Bhavin and Koyna worked in collaboration with the Delhi Visual Archive at the Centre for Community Knowledge, Ambedkar University Delhi on archival photographs of Delhi!

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

We received wonderful proposals from communities across Bangalore in response to our Requests for Proposals for Neighbourhood Engagements. The selected grants support projects in neighbourhoods in Banashankari, Richmond Town, Yelahanka and Kengeri:

Pallavi Chander, creative arts therapist received a grant for sharing through artistic practices, an arts-based therapy intervention, by the children of the MGR colony in Banashankari. The adolescent residents and participants of the Creative Arts Expression programme of the Buguri Community Library will share their experiences a year-long engagement with this intervention. The project seeks to take their learnings to members of the Buguri Library community in Bangalore and Mysore.

Sharanya Iyer, architect and urban designer received a grant for an exploration of the history of Richmond Town, a neighbourhood in Bangalore. Involving a group of mothers and children, the engagement seeks to uncover the narratives around the names of five specific streets in the neighbourhood through research and interviews with residents.

Smitha Cariappa, visual and performance artist received a grant for an artistic engagement with the community of weavers at Yelahanka, a neighbourhood in Bangalore. Drawing inspiration from the motifs, instruments of the loom, the culture of recycling and craft practices within the community, the project will explore the various dimensions of existing weaving traditions in the bylanes of the neighbourhood.

Priya Anand, a resident of Kengeri received a grant for a community project which brings together children from the residential complex of Good Earth Malhar in Kengeri, the nearby labour camp that houses construction workers, and the neighbouring villages, to create maps from their understandings of the neighbourhood. The project will explore ways in which children see their surrounding environment and forge connections with it.

These projects are made possible with support from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Project 560 programme and partnered by Citi India.

The Arts Research programme is now open and accepting proposals for the year 2019-2020!

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.

Senior Programme Officer Tanveer Ajsi talks about the Arts Research programme
and how you can apply in the video below:

For more information on the application process, eligibility requirements and other procedures, please click here! Please send your proposals soon—in any Indian language, including English! The deadline is June 28, 2019.

The Arts Research programme for the year 2019-2020 is supported by Titan Company Limited.

The Arts Practice programme supports critical practice in the arts and accepts proposals all year round. It encourages practitioners working across artistic disciplines to question existing notions through their practice. We are delighted to introduce you to our recent grantee and her project. We look forward to announcing new grants soon.

Pallavi Paul, film practitioner, video artist and researcher received a grant for a film on the experiences of women police officers from the batch inducted in 1976 from Delhi. The project focusses on questions around 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.

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

The Arts Practice programme welcomes queries and applications through the year. We look forward to receiving 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 six artists and teachers; and facilitating training workshops for teachers and administrators.

Vinod Kumar, an artist received a grant to engage with eighth grade students of the Government High School near Hommaragalli in Mysuru district to explore the various vegetables and fruits of South America that have become part of the Indian cuisine. The exploration will draw reference from Namma Hotteyalli Dakshina America, a book written by BGL Swami. Students will be involved in preparing a theatrical script based on short stories from this book in relation to their science curriculum.

Ganesh Palaveshmuttu Nador, an artist received a grant for a series of art-based experiential learning modules at the Government Higher Primary School, in Anagoda village in Uttara Kannada district. The project will enable students to trace and document the migration of a wide variety of birds in the Uttara Kannada region. Students will also engage in birdwatching and relating it to their environmental studies curriculum.

Chandrahas Yallappa J, an artist received a grant for an engagement with eighth grade students of the Government Higher Primary School in Kalaburgi to study the paintings, architecture and administration of the Bahmani Sultanate with reference to their social science syllabus. Students will be involved in workshops on line drawing, Urdu calligraphy and creative writing on the history of the Bahmani Sultanate.

Bharathi A, a teacher received a grant for an engagement with the first to fifth grade students of the Government Lower Primary School, as well as the other children in Sannakere village in Chikkamagaluru district to better equip themselves to read and write in Kannada, through explorations of ideas generated from the community. Children will learn stories related to their environment and those meant for children in different languages, community food practices and its recipes, and personal stories from people’s past experiences, culture and background.

Kishan Rao Advirao, a teacher received a grant for an engagement with eighth grade students of the High School section of the Government Pre-University College in Hanumasagara village in Koppala district, to explore and document the traditional systems of water management of the region, as well as various such practices in the larger world outside. Students will also attempt to learn the stories of Gullava, the goddess of rainwater and the associated rainwater harvesting practices that is predominant across these regions of Hyderabad Karnataka.

MJ Rajeeva Gowda, a teacher received a grant for a series of art-based experiential learning modules for the students of the Kuvempu Centenary Government Higher Primary School, in Cheemangala village in Chikkaballapura district. With many of the people in this region having histories of migration, students will be engaged in the process of documenting and analysing their own family’s journeys from across places through interviews with the elders in the community, in an attempt to understand their impact on local history. They will also be encouraged to make geographical maps of these journeys.

Kala Yatra in Shivamogga district

This component is designed to enable grantees to share their work with schools and the local communities. IFA feels that this encourages more arts integrated programmes in schools. To facilitate this, four taluks hosted 40 meaningful interactions between grantee teachers and artists and members of visiting schools.

The last such Kala Yatra took place in Shivamogga district from January 16 to 18, 2019 under the leadership of our grantee Annappa Ontimaalagi. It began with a procession of students in costumes, playing the dhol and inviting villagers for the inaugural function at their school premises. Following this, they were engaged in art integration sessions involving theatre, craft, music, games and storytelling by our grantee resource persons. It was interesting to note that the women from the village actively participated in theatre games conducted together by the programme staff and Annappa. Through this travelling module we reached out to 11 schools, 10 villages, 122 peer teachers, 2,797 students and 17,191 families.

The last Kala Yatra took place in Shivamogga district in Karnataka in January 2019 under the leadership of our grantee Annappa Ontimaalagi

Arts exposure visit – Ajanta, Ellora and Aurangabad caves

An arts and culture trip to Ajanta, Ellora and Aurangabad caves was organised for 16 teachers and artists, who were accompanied by three IFA staff members, from February 27 to March 04, 2019. Professor Deepak Kannal and Dr Rajesh Singh from Baroda who have worked extensively on these sites were invited to share their knowledge, ideas and experiences with the participants. After studying the caves, they came up with critical enquires about the architecture, sculpture, paintings, chronology etc. They were also able to observe various stylistic similarities between Ajanta, Ellora and some historical sites in Karnataka. These caves also helped participants understand how artist guilds during ancient times travelled from one site to another for reasons ranging from waning patronage and political conflicts. They also visited Bibi Ka Maqbara in Aurangabad on their way back from Ellora.

An arts and culture trip to Ajanta, Ellora and Aurangabad caves was organised for 16 teachers and artists from Karnataka with experts Professor Deepak Kannal and Dr Rajesh Singh from Baroda from late February to early March 2019

The Arts Education programme for the year 2019-2020 is supported by Citi India.

For the last three years, the Archival and Museum Fellowships initiative, supported by Tata Trusts sought 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 energised these spaces as platforms for dialogue and discourse, to create awareness and increase public engagement.

Tata Trusts’ three-year commitment of supporting our Archival and Museum Fellowships initiative comes to a close this year. Over the past three years, we have made 25 fellowships across archives and museums in the country. We look forward to introducing you to a reimagined, freshly articulated programme for archives and museums in the coming months.

The Archival and Museum Fellowship initiative for the years September 2015 to August 2019 is supported by Tata Trusts.

The IFA Archive is now online with materials from the grants made in 2011-12 and 2012-13 available! The team is currently working on uploading materials from grants made between 2009-10 and 2010-11 online.

For a virtual walk-through of The IFA Archive, watch this video

Explore a grant from the Archive with us!

Discover a grant made to the Pyara Kerketta Foundation, a Ranchi-based NGO (Vandana Tete). We part supported a conference Dalit Adivasi Theatre Akhra organised by them in Ranchi from March 26 to 28, 2012 to facilitate debates on Dalit Adivasi theatre in India. A place of verbal debate, the conference sought to critically address the dilemmas, frustrations, anxieties, and new directions of Dalit and Adivasi theatre in India.

The IFA Archive is open every Friday, between 02:30 PM and 05:30 PM (unless it’s a Government holiday). For more information, write to spandana@indiaifa.org

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

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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 in Bangalore

Talking Devices, an exhibition which traces the history and the operating environment of technology, particularly of devices that have revolutionised communication, was in collaboration with Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum (VITM), Bengaluru. Curated by Anupama Gowda and Pavan Kumar, this exhibition was open from February 16 to 28, 2019 at the VITM. The exhibition explored a non-linear approach to the museum’s collection through the close links between technology, the domain of design and the sociocultural environment.

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, Bengaluru, made possible with support from Tata Trusts.

Co-curator Pavan Kumar explaining a device from the Talking Devices exhibition to BS Sonde, Chairman of Department of Electrical Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru; Priyank M Kharge, Minister for Social Welfare, Government of Karnataka and Sudhakar Rao, retired IAS Officer, at Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, Bengaluru, on view in February 2019

Performances in Bangalore and Mysore

A performance of Vithu Mazha—Songs of the Women Warikari Poets composed and sung by Shruthi Vishwanath, with Hitesh Dhutia on the guitar and Vinayak Netke on the tabla on February 28, 2019 was organised at The Park, Bangalore and on March 02, 2019 at the Veene Sheshanna Bhavana, Ganabharathi in Mysore. Shruthi musically interprets and brings into performance the abhangs of women warikari saints. Abhangs are spiritual poems usually dedicated to the deity Vithoba or Vittala of Pandharpur and sung in the regions of Maharashtra and north Karnataka. To pick up a CD of these compositions, click here!

Shruthi Vishwanath received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Practice programme.

A performance of Vithu Mazha—Songs of the Women Warikari Poets composed and sung by Shruthi Vishwanath, with Hitesh Dhutia on the guitar and Vinayak Netke on the tabla took place in February 2019 at The Park, Bangalore

Showcase in Goa

Grinding Stories – Songs from Goa, a poetic exploration of women’s voices in association with Sunaparanta and The Heritage Network was curated by Lina Vincent Sunish on March 08, 2019 at Sunaparanta in Goa. The programme brought together vernacular and translated renditions of ‘oviyo’ songs that are sung by women in rural Goa over the grinding stone. The songs were sung by Sarojini Bhiva Gaonkar, Shubhada Chari, Rucheera Verekar and directed by Anagha Deshpande. Lina Vincent and writer and heritage advocate Heta Pandit also led a presentation and reading.

Lina Vincent Sunish received an Archival and Museum Fellowship from India Foundation for the Arts, in collaboration with the Goa Chitra Museum, made possible with support from Tata Trusts.

Grinding Stories – Songs from Goa, a poetic exploration of women’s voices in association with Sunaparanta and The Heritage Network was curated by Lina Vincent Sunish in March 2019 at Sunaparanta in Goa

Performance at Kochi-Muziris Biennale

As part of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, a performance of songs on the lives and stories of Manipuri diaspora in Bangladesh and Assam, composed, performed and sung by Akhu (Ronidkumar Chingangbam), along with Irom Singthoi on percussion and vocals and Pebam Amarjit Singh on the flute and guitar, took place on March 16, 2019 at Cabral Yard in Fort Kochi. They sang and performed from Ema-gi Wari, a concept album about Manipuris he had met in Bangladesh and Assam, whose ancestors left during the Burmese invasion between 1819 and 1826. Read an article in The Indian Express and The Hindu! To pick up a CD of Ema-gi Wari, click here!

Akhu (Ronidkumar Chingangbam) received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Practice programme.

Exhibition in Pune

The Story of You—an archaeology experiential exhibition by Alice Agarwal was organised on the theme of “The Invention of Needs by the Ancient Human”, with discussions, sketching, model making and poetry in collaboration with and at the Archaeology Museum, Deccan College, Pune on March 17, 2019.

Alice Agarwal received an Archival and Museum fellowship from India Foundation for the Arts, in collaboration the Archaeology Museum, Deccan College, Pune, made possible with support from Tata Trusts.

Fundraiser concert in Bangalore

An Evening of Sufi music with the Nizami Bandhu band comprising Ustad Chand Nizami, Shadab Faridi Nizami and Sohrab Faridi Nizami was organised as a fundraiser concert on March 22, 2019 at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Bangalore. Nizami Bandhu has a 700-year-old rich legacy of Qawwali, contributing to the growth of this soulful genre of Sufism—taking it to greater heights and securing firm ground in the forum of world music. Read an article in The Hindu!

This event was made possible through the generous contribution of RMZ Foundation; The Park, Bangalore; Kavita Iyer and Sandeep Singhal, Nafisa Noor, Indraneel Roy Chaudhury and all our individual donors.

An Evening of Sufi music with the Nizami Bandhu featuring Ustad Chand Nizami, Shadab Faridi Nizami and Sohrab Faridi Nizami was organised as a fundraiser concert in March 2019 at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Bangalore

Performance in New Delhi

Rakshas, a play directed by Bikram Ghosh and performed by the Tadpole Repertory was staged on March 16 and 17, 2019 at Panchsheel Park; on March 22 and 23, 2019 at Studio Safdar and on March 31, 2019 at Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi as part of An Old World Culture presentation. Rakshas is a Hindi adaptation by Irawati Karnik of Russian playwright Yevgeny Schwarz’s The Dragon. This adaptation, which is set in contemporary India, is designed as a lightweight, durable and cost-effective mobile spectacle to be performed with limited cast and crew, adaptable to unconventional spaces, and intended for Hindi-speaking audiences of all ages.

Bikram Ghosh received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Practice programme.

Rakshas, a play directed by Bikram Ghosh and performed by the Tadpole Repertory was staged at various venues in March 2019 in New Delhi

Singing Session and Walk in Bangalore

Naavu Idhivi (We Exist), an ongoing project by the Aravani Art Project celebrated Makar Sankranti with the transgender community singing in praise of Goddess Yellamma in the neighbourhood of Basveshwarnagar in Bangalore on January 15, 2019. The session was a glimpse into the life of the community in a public space singing for the Goddess. On March 17, 2019, a walk into Cubbon Park explored stories of love, sex and history with the transgender community. The walk, which featured performances and stories, was in collaboration with Avril Stormy Unger. The Aravani Art Project is a collective movement working to enable the transgender community through art, awareness and social participation.

Poornima Sukumar received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Project 560 programme.

Naavu Idhivi (We Exist), an ongoing project by the Aravani Art Project celebrated Sankranti with the transgender community singing in praise of Goddess Yellamma in the neighbourhood of Basveshwarnagar in Bangalore in January 2019

Listening session and Screening in Ahmedabad

Tracing the emergence of the Jaipur Atrauli Gharana, a listening session that delves into the growth of one of the newest gharanas in Hindustani vocal music was curated by Radhika Joshi Ray on March 22, 2019 at the Pt. Nandan Mehta Saptak Gallery at Saptak Archives in Ahmedabad. The next day on March 23, 2019, Gaantapaswini: A musical odyssey, an audio-visual on the life and music of Gaantapaswini Mogubai Kurdikar, also by Radhika was screened at the same venue.

Radhika Joshi Ray received an Archival and Museum Fellowship from India Foundation for the Arts, in collaboration with Saptak Archives, Ahmedabad, made possible with support from Tata Trusts.

Interactive fiction in Bangalore

Somewhere—an interactive fiction penned and devised by Dhruv Jani was showcased on March 28, 2019 at Voxelscapes, Bangalore. It is a text driven, first person exploration game, set in a mythical city of storytellers called Kayamgadh in colonial India. This interactive fiction is a collection of stories about the search for a city that does not exist. Click here to read an article in Mint Lounge.

Dhruv Jani received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Practice programme, made possible with support from Technicolor India Private Limited.

Somewhere—an interactive fiction penned and devised by Dhruv Jani was showcased in March 2019 at Voxelscapes, Bangalore

Virtual Reality experience in Kerala

Perumthachan’s Pond (Master Carpenter’s Pond), a virtual reality experience conceptualised and researched by Vimal Krishnan R was showcased for a school near the temple in Uliyanoor, Aluva. Based on the popular legend in Kerala of Perumthachan’s temple pond, the installation attempted to explore the shape-shifting and artistic possibilities of virtual reality and questioned religious indoctrination of legends by making them available for public access. The experience was organised in association with the Department of Design, IIT Hyderabad and Firefly Creative Studios. Read an article in The New Indian Express!

Vimal Krishnan R received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Practice programme.

Perumthachan’s Pond (Master Carpenter’s Pond), a virtual reality experience conceptualised and researched by Vimal Krishnan R was showcased for a school near the temple in Uliyanoor, Aluva

Installation in Bangalore

A live installation Dust to Gold by Smitha Cariappa in collaboration with Rajeshwari Anand Kumar, was on display in Yelahanka on March 30, 2019. Drawing inspiration from the motifs, instruments of the loom, the culture of recycling and craft practices within the community, the installation explores the various dimensions of existing weaving traditions in the bylanes of the neighbourhood.

Smitha Cariappa received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Project 560 programme partnered by Citi India.

A live installation Dust to Gold by Smitha Cariappa in collaboration with Rajeshwari Anand Kumar, was on display in Yelahanka in March 2019

Heritage Walk in Bangalore

The Richmond Town Diaries organised exploratory heritage walks through the eyes of children to sites such as the Masjid-E-Askari library, Richmond Institute, Koshy’s Automatic Bakery, Arab Lines and Johnson Market in the neighbourhood of Richmond Town on March 31, April 06 and 07, 2019. Read an article in the Deccan Herald!

Sharanya Iyer received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Project 560 and partnered by Citi India.

The Richmond Town Diaries organised exploratory heritage walks through the eyes of children to sites such as the Masjid-E-Askari library in the neighbourhood of Richmond Town in Bangalore in March and April 2019

Showcase in Bangalore

A Creative Arts Therapy programme by the children of MGR colony in the neighbourhood of Banashankari in Bangalore, was organised by Pallavi Chander, a creative arts therapist. The programme took place on April 11 at the Buguri Library in Mysore and on April 12 and 13, 2019 at the Buguri Library in Bangalore. It featured highlights of their experiences through myth, storytelling, cooking, dance and an exhibition of photography and video. It also saw the launch of two books put together by the participants.

Pallavi Chander received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Project 560 programme and partnered by Citi India.

Members of our staff travelled to many places to participate in discussions on arts and philanthropy.

Sumana Chandrasekhar, Senior Programme Officer and Menaka Rodriguez, Head, Resource Mobilisation and Outreach participated in a roundtable of philanthropists, donors and resource mobilisers to support work towards women and transgender rights in India, organised by South Asia Women Foundation India on January 21 and 22, 2019 in New Delhi.

Sumana Chandrasekhar, Senior Programme Officer and Menaka Rodriguez, Head, Resource Mobilisation and Outreach participated in a roundtable of philanthropists, donors and resource mobilisers to support work towards women and transgender rights in India, organised by South Asia Women Foundation India in January 2019 in New Delhi

As part of our staff development, the IFA team spent a day at the Indian Music Experience (IME) in Bangalore on January 24, 2019. The IME is an interactive music museum which aims to increase the understanding and appreciation of the diversity of Indian music, from the traditional to the contemporary through exhibits, performances and learning activities.

Menaka Rodriguez and Darshana Davé of the Resource Mobilisation team at IFA, participated in the CSR Summit and Awards 2019 organised by UBS Forums in Bangalore on February 13, 2019, where Corporates and NGOs came together to deliberate over the present and future challenges for CSR. As part of the Summit, all NGOs were invited to make a two-minute pitch about their organisations. This was followed by a live vote by the Corporates and NGOs present to select the Best NGO based on the pitch. We are delighted to share that IFA won Best NGO and won Rs 1 lakh as prize money!

Arundhati Ghosh, Executive Director was invited to speak at Raza-Souza Dialogues ’19, supported by The Raza Foundation, curated by poet and art critic Sabitha Satchi, and organised by and held at the Museum of Goa on February 23, 2019. She was speaking along with Suresh Jayaram and Subodh Kerkar on “A dialogue on art institutions”. Read an article on this forum in O Heraldo!

Arundhati Ghosh, Executive Director was invited to speak with Suresh Jayaram and Subodh Kerkar on “A dialogue on art institutions” at Raza-Souza Dialogues ’19, supported by The Raza Foundation at the Museum of Goa in February 2019

Arundhati was also invited to Dhrushyotsva, the Annual Show 2019 of Final Year students of Applied Art at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore, as chief guest on March 08, 2019.

Arundhati, Menaka and Shubham Roy Chowdhury, Senior Programme Officer, Arts Practice were invited to participate at the forum Good Pitch India. This forum which took place on March 12, 2019 at the Bangalore International Centre was organised as a platform for filmmakers working on social issues to pitch their ideas and prospective funders pledge their support. We listened to ideas, talked about our programmes and held discussions with potential applicants.

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.

Teachers' training in Rajasthan

We embarked upon a teachers’ training project in Lunkaransar, Rajasthan, on arts integration in schools, in collaboration with Plan India and the local NGO partner Urmul Sethi Sansthan. The first phase, held from February 10 to 23, 2019, included a four-day training for teachers - “ Understanding Arts Education and Building Awareness”, followed by a one-day debriefing session with local resource persons as well as members of Urmul. Twenty five primary school teachers from three cluster schools participated. Rajeev Gowda MJ, Aruna BT, Chandrahas Jalihal and Sathyanarayana Koderi were the four resource persons from Karnataka who carried out this training programme with theory as well as practical sessions. Rajkumar Rajak, a theatre practitioner from Tonk and Dwaraka Prasad J, Kaavad, an artist from Bassi engaged participants through sessions on theatre, visual arts and literature arts to integrate the arts as pedagogical tool in the classroom.

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 in a year-long engagement. These artists include 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, Astad Deboo, Anju Dodiya, Reena Kallat and Lillete Dubey. Catalyst also includes a version that can be customised to offer arts workshops along with talks.

Last quarter we collaborated with a few partners in Bangalore and Chennai to offer various arts engagements wherein artists and scholars shared their creative journeys. We organised a session with dancer Malavika Sarukkai at Renault Nissan, Chennai for their “Leader Connect Meet” on March 13, 2019 and a storytelling workshop by Ameen Haque at Sasken Technologies Limited, Bangalore on March 15, 2019.

As part of Catalyst—Arts, An Inspiration for Excellence, we organised a storytelling workshop by Ameen Haque at Sasken Technologies Limited, Bangalore in March 2019

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

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

SMART (Strategic Management in the Art of Theatre)
SMART has now been reimagined as a series of three-day workshop modules to be conducted across India. It seeks to sharpen the thinking and working processes of theatre groups. It poses questions and possibilities that will push groups to optimise their strengths, overcome constraints and make a significant and positive impact on the internal functioning of the group as well as impact the local theatre ecology. The second in the series of the SMART three-day workshops was conducted at The Courtyard in Bangalore from April 12 to 14, 2019, facilitated by SMART team members – Sunil Shanbag, Sameera Iyengar, Menaka Rodriguez and Neel Chaudhuri. Sessions include Core Values and Group Sustainability, Audience Building and Communication and Resource Mobilisation/Money and Core Values.

Over the next few months, SMART will find itself in several cities across India. Stay tuned!

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

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Arts Research
Request for Proposals from scholars, researchers, and practitioners
[Deadline: June 28, 2019]
Click here to watch a video on how you can apply!
For more information, please write to the Programme Officer Tanveer Ajsi at tanveerajsi@indiaifa.org

Arts Practice
Request for Proposals from practitioners and scholars
[Open All Year]
Click here to watch a video on how you can apply!
For more information, please write to the Programme Officers Sumana Chandrashekar at sumana@indiaifa.org and Shubham Roy Choudhury at shubham@indiaifa.org

Arts Education
Request for Proposals from teachers to work in Government Schools in Karnataka
[Deadline: July 19, 2019]
Click here to watch a video on how you can apply!
Request for Proposals from artists to work in Government Schools in Karnataka
[Deadline: July 19, 2019]
Click here to watch a video on how you can apply!
For more information, please write to the Programme Officer Krishnamurthy TN at krishna@indiaifa.org or Assistant Programme Officer Radhika Bharadwaj at radhika@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 close to 600 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.

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Merchandise

Set of Six Coasters
Have you picked up your set of six coasters, featuring eye-catching details from select IFA projects over the years? Glimpse at the work that we support during a brief respite as you enjoy your cuppa and go through 2019! From a multimedia artwork tracing the introduction of books to women in India, a graphic narrative documenting the stories of migrant labourers in New Delhi, a film essaying the life and works of artist K Ramanujam, an installation of ceramics exploring aesthetics, a dry plate collodion photography project capturing changes in two villages to an installation in a historic building in Bangalore.

Get your set soon for Rs 550/- (inclusive of domestic courier charges) online or write to us at contactus@indiaifa.org and support our work. Your purchase will go back towards grant-making.

Have you picked up your set of six coasters, featuring eye-catching details from select IFA projects?

Publications

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.

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
ArtConnect, a magazine on the arts and culture, is now available to read for free online.

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; 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!

To know more, write to contactus@indiaifa.org

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IFA: What drew you to the collection of the Delhi Visual Archive at the Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK), Ambedkar University Delhi and what were your discoveries along the way?

Bhavin Shukla: The idea of a community archive is something that I have always been fascinated with. As human beings I feel we have a strange connection to stories, especially those believed to have happened in the past. CCK’s approach to build the history of Delhi through community knowledge and participation as opposed to expert knowledge is something that interested me. It is a “bottom-up” retelling of the story of the city through the lives of its people. The idea of a travelling exhibition meant taking it out of the gallery and designing it for a diverse audience in public spaces. My quest for finding the appropriate use of architecture in India pushed me to stretch the limits of architecture and bring it into the public realm. The idea of coupling design and research is the need of the hour with the increasing demand for fast paced production of places. Being an ardent collector of everyday objects myself, I was equally fascinated by how these photographs came to be procured by CCK as much as their content. Delhi has always been talked about as the national capital with the power, but seldom as one created through migration of diverse groups of people. The Delhi Visual Archive helped me discover the local history of the national capital.

Koyna Tomar: My grandparents migrated from a village called Mahua in Uttar Pradesh to Delhi in the 1950s. My father was born in the city and also did his schooling here. So, during my childhood, and pretty much my entire life, Delhi has been a part of family conversations, memories, and I have always felt that I knew the city before I landed there for my studies. In 2003 I did a “tour” of Delhi over 15 days with my father, who wanted to show me the city and all the places he remembered – the now crumbling one-bedroom house that his family of five lived in, the school he went to, and of course all the historical monuments, although even here there were many family micro-histories – of visits, picnics, and walks that he could recall. So, I have always had a personal interest in Delhi and its lived history.

As a student at Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi I first heard about the Delhi oralities and other projects that the Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK) was conducting at Ambedkar University Delhi. When an opportunity to work with them came up, I was excited from the start. Meanwhile, I have also become interested in the possibilities that the digital world offers to archives and museums. And a project such as Delhi Memories which hopes to make public the entirety of its archive seems to be a perfect challenge. Along the way, I have discovered new software, methods, and the nitty-gritties of making a web-archive. I am also very grateful to the Centre for sharing with me their oral history recordings and various other material that made me better contextualise the images. The project also made me look back on my own family’s histories and led to several interviews with my family, especially my grandmother. We were able to scan a section of my family’s photographic records that related to their life living in the Sunder Nursery quarters which have been recently demolished. These images and memories are now part of the web-archive.

Shakuntala (photographer Lala Narain Prasad’s younger sister) drinking Coca Cola with an AISF (All India Students’ Federation) comrade and sporting CPI (Communist Party of India) flag badges in 1945 Photo Credit: Lala Narain Prasad | Courtesy: Delhi Visual Archive, Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK), Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD)

IFA: Can you tell us about the spatial dynamics of Delhi and its inhabitants as captured in these photographs?

Bhavin Shukla: One striking difference between the Delhi today and that seen in the photographs is the use of the bicycle. A photograph showing large numbers of bicycles parked at Connaught Place struck many visitors at the exhibition. This tells us a fair bit about how people navigated the city in those times and how the physical form of the city allowed for this kind of mobility. The stark difference between the crowded Old Delhi and imperial New Delhi with its wide empty roads was telling of how the rulers of Delhi used space to assert power. Personally, I was particularly drawn to a photograph showing a bare piece of land with few small houses. For me, it was indicative of the growth of the city and how peripheries struggle between the invasion of the city and the stagnation of the village. Some anthropologists have described the medieval cities as fortified markets, a phenomenon quite prevalent in the photographs. The idea of the “bazaar” goes back centuries and still continues to characterize the experience of Delhi. Spiro Kostof, a great architectural and urban historian, in his book, The City Shaped describes a city as “a place of energised crowding of people”. The CCK collection of photos illustrates this very clearly.

Connaught Place, New Delhi, 1984 Photo Credit: Christophe Fanjat | Courtesy: Delhi Visual Archive, CCK, AUD

IFA: What did the photographs tell us about life in everyday life in the capital from the 1930s to the 1990s?

Bhavin Shukla: According to historian John Tosh, we look to the past to understand our present and plan our future. The photographs are evidence that everyday life is not a trivial aspect in the evolution of the city. Our future is not the glamorous visual on the billboards, but the small changes we experience in our daily lives. They (the photographs) depict Delhi as a city of complexity and contradiction. “I feel a strange connection with these photographs. But it is definitely not Delhi,” exclaimed a visitor at the inauguration of the exhibition at Ambedkar University Delhi. He spoke of how the photographs surprised and moved him at the same time – as someone who was not only born in the city, but also lived there for 30 years. nother visitor confessed, “My first time in Delhi reminds me of the harsh summer, Nizamuddin Station, crowds and fast-moving unknown people. It was very disorienting, like a small fish in a huge ocean”. Yes, the life in the capital was very different back then but there are certain things that remain central to human nature. Poetry reading gives way to television, cycles give way to cars, tiffin dabbas give way to home deliveries, neighbours give way to facebook friends. However, the fear of getting lost, the fatigue of remaining hopeful, waiting for the monsoons, the joy of childhood, and picnics in gardens are the ways in which we experience the city even today. Who really is the true “Dilliwala” – the man who sells bird feeders for a living, the storyteller at Red Fort, or the grandfather playing chess with his grandson in the courtyard of their haveli? Maybe all of them.

(L) Sunday Market of Chandni Chowk, 1968 and (R) Vendors selling ropes in a local market of Delhi, 1966 Photo Credit: Lala Narain Prasad | Courtesy: Delhi Visual Archive, CCK, AUD

IFA: Do we learn anything about the photographers or collectors of these images?

Bhavin Shukla: The photographer of most of these images is Lala Narain Prasad. A chartered accountant by profession, he was privileged enough to possess a box camera in those times. It is interesting how he has captured life around him without any preconceived intention of building up a theme etc. His flair for photography is evident from how he frames his photographs - good enough to tell the story, but interesting enough not to reveal the whole of it. Most of these photos open out infinite possibilities of interpretation owing to the fact that the exact dates and places where they were shot are still unknown. This is what makes the collection rich with stories of the city. Other contributors include Jan Freise, a photojournalist; Gossi Soto, a Mexican journalist who came to India post-independence to study at Delhi University; and Christophe Fanjat, a French scholar. The amount of time and energy that CCK has invested in collecting these photographs and documenting their stories through long sessions with the photographers and / or their family members is commendable. For example in case of the Fozan Ali Ahmed collection, his khaala (aunt) Nafeesa, the last of the survivors from the time period in which the photos were taken, has very kindly spent time explaining the context of many of the photographs. It is interesting to listen to these recordings as their personal narratives help contextualise the photographs.

IFA: What is the curatorial concept of Delhi Dialogues?

Bhavin Shukla: Inspired by the writer Chimamanda Adichie, the exhibition is based on the concept that “there is no single story”. It captures multiple, fragmented narratives without forcibly stringing them into one theme. Owing to the fact that social memory is inherently fragmented, it strives to evoke thoughts and connections that can result in rich discussions about life in the city. I wanted to reach out to people from different walks of life and build a sense of compassion towards people we don’t meet often, but are as much part of the city we live in. At a time when the future of cities is the talk of the town, I felt the need to use these photographs of the past to create a narrative about the future. With the intention of making the displays provocative, a line of text from memoirs and other books on Delhi was added to the description of each photograph. There were two types of displays - single panels and fold-outs. The foldouts depicted some common threads that emerged from a seemingly disparate set of photographs. For example, The individual and the collective shows the individual’s perseverance and the energy of the collective. A city is like a human being, with its own mood swings, tantrums, joy, anger and sadness. Hence, Moods of the city captures the pensive mood of the Jami Masjid and the authoritative air of New Delhi alike.

(L) Architect Bhavin Shukla curated Delhi Dialogues at Ambedkar University, Karampura Campus, New Delhi in September 2018 and travelled to Kankaria Lakefront, Ahmedadad in March 2019 Photo Credit: Neel Jain (R) Photographer Lala Narain Prasad’s wife and Swedish photographer Marie Ann Gripman at a picnic in Delhi in the 1950s Photo Credit: Lala Narain Prasad | Courtesy: Delhi Visual Archive, CCK, AUD

IFA: The structure that you designed for the exhibition looks really interesting. Could you describe it to us?

Bhavin Shukla: During the process of discussions and curating the exhibition we took a stand that we would like to exhibit the photographs in everyday spaces. Hence we decided to conceptualise the exhibition as a marketplace, where dialogue between strangers would serve as the crux. We used this photograph from the archive as inspiration for the exhibition structure. The awnings that extend from the shops into the street create a temporary space of their own. The exhibition too is like that, opening and closing, expanding and contracting - an extension of the everyday. Through repetition, the red columns create the sense of a street. The exhibition is modular so the length and configuration can be changed based on where it is located. The structure can easily be assembled and disassembled in a matter of hours and does not require any special skills. The ambient light is inbuilt in the structure and so with just one plug point or source of electricity, the entire structure is lit up in the evenings. The structure also provides space for two soft boards. During the exhibition, these were used to pin up postcards, visitors' experiences and notices for the events.

(L) Thelawalas (handcart, lorry and trolly pullers) on strike, Delhi, 1940s Photo Credit: Lala Narain Prasad | Courtesy: Delhi Visual Archive, CCK, AUD (R) Visitors at Delhi Dialogues curated by Bhavin Shukla at Ambedkar University, Karampura Campus, New Delhi in September 2018 Photo Credit: Neel Jain

IFA: The photographs in the exhibition are interspersed with a lot of text – what is the relation between the images and the text?

Bhavin Shukla: Contemporary authors, anthropologists, and historians such as William Dalrymple, Aravind Adiga, Emma Tarlo, Saraswati Haider, David Prager, Pamela Timms and others have described Delhi as it exists today through different genres of writing. The combination of the past as photographs and present as text provides a conversation for the viewer. Historian EH Carr in his book What is History? writes, “History is an unending dialogue between the present and the past”. The exhibition is a dialogue about life in a city. Very often while looking at old photographs we become nostalgic, as a curator this was something I explicitly did not want to engage with. The text allows for the photographs to be seen in more recent context. It’s only when we see the relevance of these photographs in today’s time that we can appreciate our everyday. The relation between the text and photographs is not very direct. The text-image relationship in exhibition is almost like being in the ‘house of mirrors’ offering multiple reflections of the same city. As a curator, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of identifying the most appropriate and provocative text for each image.

IFA: You had organised a number of parallel events during the time of the exhibition, how did these events relate to the exhibition?

Bhavin Shukla: The events that I organised were meant to complement and extend the dialogue that the exhibition intended to create. Vani Subramanian’s film New (improved) Delhi spoke of the ruthless eviction of informal settlements in Delhi and the experience of being evicted. Sameera Jain’s film Bhai Mian was about looking at Delhi through the perspective of a kite-maker, Bhai Mian, a jeweller who turned to kite-making and represented India at international/national kite flying and making events. Shaunak Sen, through his film, Cities of Sleep, looked at Delhi through the life of a pavement dweller and the struggle for sleep. In the sharing circle, people came to share their stories and experiences about Delhi. These events opened up different perspectives of looking at the city.

IFA: Where else has this exhibition travelled subsequently?

Bhavin Shukla: After opening in Delhi, the exhibition travelled to Ahmedabad in March 2019. We set it up on the Kankaria Lake front, an outdoor public space in the city visited by people from all walks of life. The lakefront has many public attractions including a zoo, toy train, kids' city, tethered balloon ride, water rides, food stalls, and entertainment facilities. In the mornings people use it to exercise, cycle, walk and in the evenings they come for a stroll or just to enjoy the ambiance and view. It truly is an everyday space of the city. The Municipal commissioner for the venue granted us permission to set up the exhibition at no extra cost, for which we are grateful. This according to me this was a great step which allowed the exhibition go that extra mile and truly immerse itself in the public realm. It was almost like closing a full loop. At the start of my fellowship I had outlined the intention of the exhibition as a public installation that pops-up and disappears. And it was finally at the Ahmedabad exhibition that this was achieved. Though it was a short three-day exhibition, the feedback we received was fantastic. A lot of visitors could connect to these photographs and wished to see similar ones of Ahmedabad. The administration too showed interest and asked if such an exhibition about the city could be on permanent display.

IFA: Can you tell us about the architecture and design of the website? In what sense is the website ‘interactive’?

Koyna Tomar: From the beginning we wanted to keep the archive open-ended. By that I mean it was important for us that anyone using the website would have multiple entry-points into the archive. I chose the software CollectiveAccess to do the ‘back-end’ of the website, which is where the collections are digitally stored. CollectiveAccess gave me the flexibility to build its architecture from scratch and organise the entire archives according to various criteria – keywords, places, people, collectors etc. This is reflected directly in the format of the website; users can search the images via keywords, and we have tried to incorporate as many as we can, or they can use the more ‘structured’ options of places, people, or collectors to filter the images. The website has the option for people to login and signup – which allows them to make their own galleries from the images in the archive. This opens up the space for public curation of the work. The website also allows for people to comment and point out any factual mistakes / contribute with new stories / information.

Koyna Tomar created an online exhibition titled Memories of Delhi / Dilli ki Yaadein which attempted to use various vantage points in the city to explore life around it

IFA: Can you tell us about the audio, textual and visual components that you have attempted to connect in the online archive?

Koyna Tomar: Currently the website contains textual and visual elements. I have worked to make the back-end flexible enough to incorporate audio clips. The Centre is keen on adding interviews and other media to the website, so we should see this in the future. The map on the homepage provides a way to spatially locate our entire archive. All the pictures are plugged into the place they have been shot. Users can also filter the images by places, collection, or themes (forthcoming). The individual images are connected with the larger CCK collections through the information they carry, we have tried our best to locate images in their historical context. Sometimes, I have also added snippets of relevant songs, texts from newspapers in the descriptions.

IFA: You have curated “featured exhibits” for the website; can you describe them to us?

Koyna Tomar: The website has a total of fifteen “featured exhibits”. These are sets of images that tell stories that appealed to me the most. Eight of these are narrative threads while the rest are galleries in the sense that they draw largely from specific collections. Deciding on the galleries was a collaborative exercise. There was deliberation and negotiation with Surajit Sarkar, the director of CCK, and Vinitha Jayaprakasan, the research assistant responsible for Delhi Memories. All of us had our favorites but we decided to narrow on the fifteen that resonated with each of us. One of my favourite galleries that I have curated is the narrative thread on the theme of “Animals”. I was struck by how invisible animals are rendered in our narratives of the city even though we interact with them on an everyday basis. The gallery tries to emphasise this interconnectedness while also highlighting the invisibility of their labour. Thus there are images of elephants drawing carts from the colonial era, donkeys and horses carrying loads in the streets of Chandni Chowk along with images of pet cats, bird-hospitals, and horses that feature in family picnic along the Badhkal lake. Another personal favourite is the gallery ‘Women and College Spaces’. Having studied at a women’s college I was excited to find images of women students that spanned decades. I decided to thread these together in a gallery that showed some of the excitement and tensions of being a woman student in Delhi’s extremely vibrant college spaces.

For Koyna, it was important that anyone using the website would have multiple entry-points into the Delhi Visual Archive to enable a public curation of the work

Bhavin Shukla and Koyna Tomar 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.

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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.

On March 22, 2019, IFA organised a fundraiser—An Evening of Sufi music with the Nizami Bandhu at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Bangalore. We are very grateful to the RMZ Foundation, Kavita Iyer and Sandeep Singhal, Nafisa Noor, Indraneel Roy Chaudhury, The Park Hotels (Hospitality Partner) and all other individuals who have generously contributed to make this event possible.

We would especially like to acknowledge support from the Singhal Iyer Family Foundation (SIFF) for the Arts Education annual publication Hejjegalu; and Mr Jaithirth (Jerry) Rao for donating Rs 5 lakh towards programmes; and Technicolor India Private Limited for support towards two Arts Practice grants, 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.

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