For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that aims to explore the megaliths in Mizoram as archives that shape contemporary Mizo identity and aesthetics. Through a combination of ethnographic study and artistic collaboration, the project will examine how megaliths function as repositories of indigenous imagination and how they resonate within contemporary artistic practices, including painting, sculpture, and digital media. The outcome of this project will include a visual archive of photographs, a bilingual photo book, a critical essay examining the megaliths as indigenous archives and their contemporary reinterpretations, new artworks created in collaboration with contemporary artists, and participatory workshops and dialogues engaging youth and community members in Mizoram. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final reports, will include the photo book and the research essay, and fieldwork documentation. Project funds will pay for contract fees, workshop, printing, travel and living and communication.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that aims to generate new ethnographic art-historical knowledge on Husayn-centric devotion by exploring the relationship between piety, labour, and materiality by mapping a “Husayn-scape” from western Uttar Pradesh to Bengal, tracing how Shiʿi and Sufi devotion to Husayn is translated into built forms (imambaras, Karbalas, dargahs) and ritual objects (taziya, alam, zarih). The outcome of this project will be scholarly essays that will foreground new ethnographic art-historical knowledge on Husayn-centric devotion, an online interdisciplinary seminar, a public workshop organised as part of the project and a website. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables, along with the final reports, will include six peer-reviewed art history essays and three photo-essays, documentation of the seminar and the workshop, and a dedicated website hosting photographs, documents, and recorded voices, ensuring open-access digital preservation of research on Husayn-centric devotional spaces. Project funds will pay for contract fees, travel and living, purchase of equipment, publication, materials and stationery.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that will investigate the legacy and visual practices of Kamat Foto Flash, a pioneering photo studio that shaped the visual culture of Bombay cinema from the 1940s to the 2000s. By treating the studio’s vast archive of production stills as a vital site of cinematic memory, the study explores how the technology of photography influenced film publicity, star-making, and aesthetic trends across decades. The outcome of this project will include recordings of key informant interviews and a curated exhibition of images from the Kamat archive, focusing on the study of film ephemera and photo stills. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final reports, will be the audiovisual documentation of the interviews and the exhibition. Project funds will pay for travel and living, contract fees and exhibition.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that seeks to explore the landscape of Qawwali singing in India through the artistic lives of Muslim women performers, along with their journeys from art practice to performance, and how they navigate and negotiate between desire and devotion, career and honour, visibility and containment, and selective loving of a culture and tradition. The project employs a visual ethnographic approach, combining participant observation, interviews, documentation, and archival research. The outcome of this project will be a short documentary film that captures the stories and performance journeys of at least two qawwalan at different stages in their careers, along with songs contributed by them. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final reports, will include the documentary film and Sufi songs sung by the artists and contributors. Project funds will pay for contract fees and travel and living.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions that is a speculative non-fiction, an exercise in world-building, examining alternate realities and new mythologies titled SuperOrganism. The outcome of this project will be a book – printed and bound, illustrations: prints and paintings, and an audio-visual installation The print edition will use story (world-building) as a medium, interspersed with academic writing, illustrating the characters of the Minstrel, a wandering storyteller, and Celeste, a modern-day perfumer. The installation will draw upon stories of both the characters and create a participatory experience for the viewer. Both together and apart, the two works will explore identity, belonging, language and community. Project Coordinator's deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be documentation materials from the project, and the book. Project funds will pay for contract fees, hire of equipment, materials, travel and living, and hire of venue.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions that is towards a manuscript of a graphic journal The Art-Educators’ Diary, an illustrated account of the work of art-educators in the form of comics in Hindi. The book will hold stories and experiences of art-educators working in alternate learning spaces for children - care homes, learning centers, libraries and NGO run schools. This will be a handbook which will include research, stories, anecdotes, challenges, conversations with students and art educators, and even lesson plans and curriculum through hand-drawn comics. The outcome of this project will be a graphic journal for art educators. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be documentation materials from the project and the graphic journal. Project funds will pay for contract fee, printing, travel and living, materials, workshop, and communication.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Explorations that will delve into a world-building, exploring ‘aphantamophia’, as an artistic inquiry into a speculative future, where humanity loses internal imagery, ceding memory to machine, and the artistic process involves writing, filmmaking, and the making of physical artifacts, to investigate the transformation of seeing, knowing and technological dependence. The outcome of the project will be world-building, experimentations with multimedia installation, involving film, writings, photography, or books. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the audio-visual documentation of the artistic process, writings, films, or photographs. Project funds will pay for Contract Fees, Printing, Hire of Equipment, Materials, and Subscription to Software.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Explorations that will delve into a multiform inquiry into the Najafgarh drain in Delhi, juxtaposing its current ecological reality in the form of a sonic photo-essay, with an experimental play about the historical figure of Mirza Najaf Khan. The outcome of the project will be photography and sound captures leading to a sonic photo-essay, and an experimental play. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the audio-visual documentation of the artistic process, and the photo-essay. Project funds will pay for Contract Fees, Travel and Living, Hire of Equipment, Archive and Library Fees, Printing and materials.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Arts Platforms that will facilitate puppet labs as a platform that will train puppeteers, facilitating collaborations with senior artists as mentors, thus providing a supportive environment for creating experimental work in puppetry, and thereby building a skilled and connected community. The outcomes of the project will be the puppet lab, online mentoring sessions and final showcase of four new final puppetry shows. The Project Coordinator's deliverables to IFA, along with the final report, will be the photographic and audio-visual documentation of the artistic process of the labs, workshops and the final puppetry shows. Project funds will pay for contract fees, travel and living, materials, documentation, printing and stationery.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Arts Platforms that will create a podcast series exploring the intersection of copyright law and art. Hosted by a lawyer and musician, it will leverage the uniqueness of human voice as an art tool, which is common to podcasts, vocal music and resonant legal rhetoric. The outcomes of the project will be a series of podcasts that will demystify, and simplify copyright law and art, to make the information more accessible to artists, through discussions between law experts and artists. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final report, will include podcast episodes, along with corresponding infographics and social media posts. Project funds will pay for contract fees, production, hire of venue, and stationery.
