Arts Research programme

The Arts Research programme is currently undergoing a review and is closed for the year 2024-2025.

The Arts Research programme engages scholars, researchers, and practitioners to research various histories and expressions of artistic practices in India. It seeks to foster wider perspectives, understandings, interpretations and engagements in the arts.

We invite proposals for our Arts Research programme from researchers and practitioners who are interested in undertaking research projects, implemented by IFA. These projects could investigate marginalised or relatively unexplored areas; intend to create spaces for dialogue between theory and practice; offer new readings of artistic practices; and use interdisciplinary approaches to break new conceptual ground, among other things.

IFA specifically encourages projects in Indian languages, including English, so as to contribute to the discourse in various language contexts.

Research projects should have clear research objectives, in-depth background survey, critical research questions, rigorous methodologies, and specific outcomes that will be shared in the public domain. The outcomes could be books, essays, films, websites, multimedia exhibitions, etc.

For all queries about the programme, please email harshita@indiaifa.org

The Arts Research programme is made possible with support from BNP Paribas India.

In 2014, after eight years, the erstwhile Arts Research and Documentation programme underwent a review process by a panel of experts comprising Susie Tharu, MD Muthukumaraswamy, Aneesh Pradhan, and Rahul Roy. In order to develop a broad sense of the current landscape of arts research in India and understand the relevance of this programme, views from the field were presented to the panel. (Please refer to our Voices from the Field Report) The panel made a set of recommendations to IFA and the current Arts Research programme is an outcome of those recommendations.