Request for Applications: Museum Fellowship | Barpeta Museum | Deadline: September 20, 2018 (CLOSED)
India Foundation for the Arts
in collaboration with
Barpeta District Museum, Assam
invites applications for
a Museum Fellowship
Application Deadline: Thursday, September 20, 2018
This initiative is supported by TATA TRUSTS
India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) in collaboration with Barpeta District Museum, Assam invites applications for a Museum Fellowship for a period of nine months.
The Archival and Museum Fellowships initiative of IFA began with the two-fold objective of providing practitioners with an opportunity to generate new, critical and creative approaches to public engagement with collections in archives and museums, and to energise these spaces as platforms for discussion and debate.
About the IFA-Barpeta Museum Fellowship:
The Fellowship offers creative practitioners the opportunity to curate an exhibition with the collection that will remain permanently at the museum as its key attraction. The awardee will also be responsible for creating wall texts about the objects in the exhibition in order to enable the viewer to have a visually and intellectually stimulating experience in the museum.
About the Museum:
The Barpeta District Museum in Assam is located in Barpeta, known as the heritage town of Assam, because of its unique Neo-Vaishnavite cultural-religious heritage of a sect that was founded by Srimanta Sankardeva in the 15th and 16th centuries. Sankardeva and his disciple Madhabdeva lived in Barpeta for many years and transformed it into a town of many satras. Satras can be described as Neo-Vaishnavite monasteries that also served as important sociocultural centres for the Assamese society. Barpeta, once described as the 'Venice of the East' because of its numerous water ways, now has the largest number of satras in Assam.
The Barpeta District Museum that was established in 1987 houses more than 450 miscellaneous objects including those relating to satras such as wooden pillars with sculpted images of Brahma and Shiva, wooden images of Garunda, Guruasona made of copper, wooden masks used in theatrical performances like the Aankiya Nat or Bhaona, over a hundred old manuscripts, musical instruments, besides other sculptures made of bamboo, stone, iron, brass and bell metal.
For more information about the collection please contact Mr Nripen Roy at nripenaxombarpeta@gmail.com
Applicant profile:
We seek applications from exhibition designers, curators, and other creative practitioners with prior experience in exhibition design, display and curating with a strong interest in working with museum collections.
Applicants from Assam will be given preference. Practitioners who are Indian nationals or have been residents of India for five years or more are eligible to apply. To know more about our eligibility criteria please click here
Financial assistance and other support:
The Fellowship provides an honorarium of Rs 2,00,000/- for a duration of nine months. A separate budget will be provided for the final exhibition.
Important dates:
- The deadline for receiving applications is Thursday, September 20, 2018.
- Shortlisted candidates will be informed by the last week of September 2018.
- Interviews with shortlisted candidates are expected to take place by the first week of October 2018.
- The Fellowship will commence from October 15, 2018 for a period of nine months.
Application Process:
Your application must include:
- A statement of vision for what you imagine this permanent exhibition could be.
- A letter of interest explaining how you would benefit from this Museum Fellowship. Please identify aspects of your practice that you think will be honed and further developed during the course of the Fellowship.
- A brief description of a project you have been involved with as a curator, designer or arts practitioner. This will need to be accompanied by the documentation of the project, which should include six to eight scanned or printed images with titles and dates, DVD (maximum duration of four minutes), catalogues, artworks, performances, or reviews.
- Your curriculum vitae.
Please email your application or any queries to Suman Gopinath at suman@indiaifa.org and post the required documents to IFA in an envelope marked 'IFA-Barpeta Museum Fellowship' by Thursday, September 20, 2018.
'IFA-Barpeta Museum Fellowship'
India Foundation for the Arts
'Apurva', Ground Floor
No 259, 4th Cross
Raj Mahal Vilas, 2nd Stage, 2nd Block
Bangalore - 560 094