For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that will investigate the relatively underexplored trans-urbanic sonic highway connecting Calcutta and Mumbai during the early twentieth century. The project basing its research on select printed materials and audio recordings of Dr Ashok Da Ranade Archive will explore how the cross-pollination of European classical and operatic music, travelling opera troupes, Parsi-Iranian theatrical motifs, and Jazz syncopation forged a trans-urban “colonial cosmo-modernism” that fundamentally reorganised the listening cultures of Maharashtra and Bengal. The outcomes of this project will be a website of Trans-Urban Sound Map of Calcutta-Mumbai and an academic essay. In addition, public programming like sonic salons and performers’ parlours with scholars and performers will be organised. The Project Coordinator’s final deliverables to IFA will be the manuscript of the academic essay, an open-access website, and audio-visual documentation of the public programming. This is a collaboration with Dr Ashok Da Ranade Archives in Pune, Maharashtra. The Project funds will pay for contract fees, public programming, travel and living and website hosting.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Explorations that will explore the photo-chemical and photo-mechanical dimensions of the organic materials sourced from East Kolkata Wetlands, in order to recontextualise the current conditions of the water-based infrastructures surrounding an Indian metropolis in light of the climate crisis. The outcome of the project will include print-based works, site-specific interventions with found materials, documentation of eco-somatic and alternate process, along with a short essay on ecological photochemistry. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be photographic and visual documentation of the artistic process, and the short essay. Project funds will pay for the materials, archive and library fees, contract fees, travel and living, and hire of venue.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that will develop a comparative history of listening cultures in Maharashtra and Bengal, demonstrating how music circulated through performers, audiences, institutions, print, recording and broadcasting. Titled Listening Across Space: Sound and Memory in Maharashtra and Bengal, the project will foreground listening as a social, cultural, and historical practice. The outcomes of this project will be a research article on listening cultures in Maharashtra and Bengal; an annotated digital bibliography and research guide on archival sources relating to Indian listening cultures; a digital exhibition; public lectures and an educational toolkit introducing broader audiences to India's archival histories of listening. The Project Coordinator’s final deliverables to IFA will include the research article, annotated digital bibliography and research guide, a curated digital exhibition, and an educational toolkit and documentation from the public programming. This is a collaboration with Dr Ashok Da Ranade Archives in Pune, Maharashtra. The Project funds will pay for travel and living, contract fees, workshop, archive and museum fee, publicity and marketing, subscription to software, and website hosting.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Explorations that will include the making of anthotype prints (using light-sensitive plant pigments) from medicinal plants gathered from Thurga River, Ajodhya Hills, Purulia, towards the making of a bilingual Santali-Bengali/English zine of anthotype prints. The outcome of the project will be a series of anthotype prints made from medicinal plants gathered along the Thurga River, as a fading archive and a bilingual zine. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be a bilingual Santali-Bengali/English zine of the anthotype prints. Project funds will pay for contract fees, travel and living, publication, printing, workshop and materials.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that will engage primary school and hostel students of the Rolf Schoembs Vidyashram (RSV) run by Ghosal Danga Adibasi Seva Sangha, in Ghosal Danga, Birbhum district. This 18-month project titled Integrating Santal Aesthetics into Everyday Educational Practices, seeks to revitalise school education by embedding Santal artistic traditions, storytelling, mural-making, theatre, and indigenous food and customs, into the everyday rhythm of classroom learning. The school hopes to bridge formal education and the cultural life of the local Santal Adivasi community, nurturing creativity, cultural identity, and ecological sensitivity among learners. The outcome of the project will be a handmade anthology of illustrated stories, a mural, community exhibition and a seminar on Santal aesthetics. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final report will be a digital copy of the illustrated anthology, photographs and video documentation of the entire project. Project funds will pay for contract fee, materials, documentation, exhibition, workshop, travel and living and printing.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that will facilitate research and creation of two volumes of graphic novel on the lesser-explored history of revolutionaries like Rashbehari Bose, Kanailal Dutta, Upendranath Bandyopadhyay and Motilal Roy along with other revolutionary figures in Chandannagar. It will also explore the tangible and intangible heritage and culture of the city that emerges out of the collection at the Chandernagore College Museum. The outcomes of the project will be a sample print of the two-volume graphic novel, digital copies of the graphic novels, a handout for the museum, and workshops around illustration and storytelling. The Project Coordinator’s final deliverables along with the final reports will be the printed copies of the graphic novels, digital copies of the graphic novels, a copy of the handout, and audio-visual documentation of the workshops and other public programming. This is a collaboration with the Chandernagore College Museum, West Bengal. Project funds will pay for contract fees, travel and living, publication, workshop, hire of equipment, and Archives and library fee.
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. The project will map 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 facilitate archival research and ethnographic fieldwork towards production of creative interventions encapsulating the history of Chandannagar and the Chandernagore College Museum. The project will delve in to the history of the city, the impact of French rule, revolutionary histories and the various tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and how the Chandernagore College and the Museum stands as witness to all these transformations. The outcomes of the project will be the documentary film, onsite audio-guide in the museum, the 360-degree virtual tour for the website of the museum, the audio-visual podcast and video vlog for social media platforms and/or website. The Project Coordinator’s final deliverables along with the final reports will be the copy of the documentary film in Bangla with French and English subtitles, files of the audio-guide, the files of the 360-degree virtual tour, the audio-visual recordings and the final cut of the podcast episodes, the vlog and any additional recordings. This is a collaboration with the Chandernagore College Museum, West Bengal. Project funds will pay for production, contract fees, hire of equipment, hire of venue, purchase of equipment and travel and living.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions that envisions creating an artist’s book/glossary through onsite engagements, developing small devices such as the Lorrain Glass and Thaumatrope with short videos, and producing a temporary landscape archive. The project inquires into the spaces of transitions, reuses, impositions and superimpositions, anchoring the ghats (riverbanks) between the Rabindra Setu and the Vidyasagar Setu along the Hooghly River in Kolkata. Focussing on temporary spaces that are part of the urban fabric and improvement-narratives, it seeks to trace, contest, and retrace the points fronted by the planning archives through a critical lens. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be an artist’s book/glossary, the small devices produced, short videos, and documentation materials from the process and the temporary landscape archive. Project funds will pay for contract fee, production, printing, documentation, travel and living, hire of venue, and archive fee.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions that will focus on the creation of a photobook in the Bankri dialect, titled Saru Suta Bel Phuler Mala (Thread-like Jasmine Garland) which is taken from a popular tusu song. This project is a form of protest for the Project coordinator who is trying to create the first photobook in Bankri dialect to represent a region, its people, and their language which rarely finds representation in the mainstream public discourse. The outcome of this project will be a first of its kind photobook in Bankri representing the life of the people of rural Bankura and Purulia. The Project Coordinator's deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be documentation materials from the project, and the photobook. Project funds will pay for contract fees, travel and living, publication, hire of equipment, consumables and purchase of books.
