For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions, which will explore the politics of hierarchies and erasures of languages through a study of five scripts namely Mahajani, Modi lipi, Tamil numerals, Devanagari and Kannada. Titled Degrees of Exclusion of Languages, this project will attempt to understand linguistic divide as a core dimension of the national education enterprise and a crucial axis of negotiation within our public domain and democracy. It will explore cultural dilemmas and strategies of survival that languages have struggled with. The outcomes from this project will be a set of three-dimensional physical and digital letterpress moveable types for all the five scripts, letterpress prints, lithographs on paper, and a booklet that catalogues all the letters in these scripts in the form that they have existed so far. The Project Coordinator's deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be the digital models, a set of physical letterpress types, copies of the lithographs, copies of the letterpress prints and the catalogue will be the deliverables from this project to IFA. Project funds will pay for materials, contract fees, studio hire, travel and living.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions, which will explore the outbursts of artistic responses to the unfortunate death of Rohith Vemula, the circumstances that led to his death, and his suicide note. Anchored around this historic moment and its political and cultural ramifications with respect to the anti-caste movement in India, this project intends to enable conversations with select filmmakers, writers, poets and musicians who engaged deeply with Rohith’s letter. The outcome of this project will be a 60-minute film tentatively titled Speaking to Rohith. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the film. Project funds will pay for travel and living, contract fees, equipment hire and studio hire.
This Grant was amicably cancelled based on reasons mutually agreed upon by the Grantee and IFA due to unavoidable circumstances.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions that will lead to the creation of sixty poems based on the interior lives of key women characters from the epic Mahabharata. Structured as quasi-dramatic monologues, nesting within the narrative frame of prose passages, this body of imaginative poetic literature seeks to probe into the many dimensions of these characters that have largely remained invisible and unexamined within extant interpretations. In doing so, the work will creatively dialogue with existing tellings and retellings of the Mahabharata. The outcome of this project will be a manuscript containing the narrative prose and the sixty poems. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be this manuscript. Project funds will pay for travel and living, contract fees, communication, printing and stationery, and purchase of books.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Workshops, Residencies, Seminars, which will create workshops for young people from rural contexts to practice non-fiction filmmaking skills that will empower them to tell their own stories, in the socio-political context of North India. The outcomes of the project are the workshops, including individual sequences prepared by each participant and non-fiction short films that they will make in groups. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be photographs, audio-visual documentation of the workshops, the individual sequences, and the non-fiction short films. Project funds will pay for contract fees, food, travel and living, materials, and stationery.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Workshops, Residencies, Seminars, that will create a residency for movement artists and filmmakers to collaboratively explore a language for the practice of the Indian dance-film, with a focus on non-classical and marginalised movement forms. The outcome of the project is the residency and the dance-films that will result from the collaborations. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be photographs, audio-visual documentation of the residency and the dance-films. Project funds will pay for travel and living, food, hire of equipment, contract fees, materials and hire of venue.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Arts Platforms which will curate a series of 12 to 15 sessions of discussion on the online platform titled Re-Cognising Dance. Propelled by a need to create a healthy and safe space for building dance scholarship in India, this series hopes to build robust and stimulating conversations on neglected themes, bridge the classical-folk divide, and provide access to resources, collaborations, scholars and mentors in the field of dance. The outcomes from this project will be the 12 to 15 virtual sessions of discussion and a website that will be a repository of textual and audio-visual materials. The Project Coordinators’ deliverables to IFA with the final report will include recordings of the sessions of discussion and a download of the website. Project funds will pay for contract fees, zoom and canva subscriptions, and website domain and hosting.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Workshops, Residencies, Seminars which will create a music workshop on the folk and traditional music and culture of the Chakpa community in two villages, Phayeng and Leimaram, 30 km from Imphal. The workshop will bring together the few living Gurus and experts of the Chakpa cultural practices, and young artistes of Manipur who practice folk and traditional arts. The outcomes of the project would be the workshop, photographs, a collection of songs, and a new contemporary performance by the participants. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be photographs, collection of songs, workshop notes and audio-visual documentation of the workshop and performances. Project funds will pay for travel and living, professional fees, venue hire, honorarium and stationery.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions, to create a physical poetry performance that critiques the efficacy of six mega hydro projects in Manipur that fell short of their intended purpose. Based on detailed research into the ramifications of the Khuga, Khoupam, Singda and Thoubal dams, the Loktal project and the Dholaithabi barrage project, this work will be an artistic response to a flawed and degenerate political system. The outcome of this project will be the physical poetry performance. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA from this project will be still and video documentation of the process and the final production. Project funds will pay for professional fees, production, equipment hire, venue hire, honorarium, printing and publicity, resource persons’ fees, travel, and purchase of books and library fees.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Workshops, Residencies, Seminars which will create a design residency for architects and designers to reimagine the architectonics of performance spaces including those for theatre in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and physical distancing. The residency is inspired by Rustom Bharucha’s nine-episode speech act titled Theater & CoronaVirus. The outcome of the project will be orthographic drawings, volumetric and form models, essays and visual concept maps. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be photographs, audio-visual documentation of the workshop and outcomes, screen recordings of online sessions, architectural drawings and models in digital forms, link to the studio blog and an offline file of the studio blog at the time of project completion. Project funds will pay for professional fees, honorarium and stationery.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Explorations, which will examine the anatomy of a collective song We shall Overcome and its various iterations across time, geography, language and political context. This will be done by aggregating a vast array of data about its musicality, structure, popularity maps, analytics, and audience interactions such as YouTube comments. The envisioned outcome may start to take shape only as the project progresses and may be an intermedia work. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the process documentation and the intermedia work. Project funds will pay for professional fees, honorarium, printing, studio hire, books, web hosting and online subscriptions.
