Sashna B

This Foundation Project, implemented by IFA under Explorations, will make a history card game that will explore the political, cultural, and social evolution of Tamil history from the Sangam Era to the Dravidian Movement, with illustrated cards created by contemporary Tamil artists and designers. Sashna B is the Coordinator for this project. 

Sashna B is a multidisciplinary researcher, and cultural analyst, based in Chennai, India. She holds an MA in Urban Studies from the 4CITIES Erasmus Mundus Program and a BA in Literary Cultural Analysis from the University of Amsterdam. Her practice intersects cultural history, urban design, gender-responsive advocacy, and game design. She has contributed to public arts projects, gender-inclusive civic interventions, film curation, and research initiatives with organisations like the Urban Design Collective. Given her experience, Sashna B is best placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

The project titled Anniki: A Tamil History Card Game is an interactive artistic-research project that transposes Tamil Nadu’s socio-political and cultural evolution into a card game, drawing its name from the colloquial Tamil word anniki which means, “on that day.” The game will attempt to transform historical inquiry into a shared storytelling experience. The project will involve the making of 100-card illustrated deck, covering a period from the ancient Sangam era to modern social movements like the Dravidian political mobilisation. The players will compete in creating the historical events as a temporal sequence, while contesting the linearity of historical time, with imagined history as memorised. Rather than relying strictly on prior factual knowledge, the game will strategically incorporate disruptive action cards that mirror historical ruptures like colonial encounters, which will allow participants to win through deduction, tactical play, and critical discourse. 

The artistic research process will include historiographical research, to curate a diverse spectrum of events from Tamil history, and each card that will be illustrated by contemporary Tamil artists, will have embedded QR codes that will link each card to respective archival sources, and citations, creating bridges between card gaming and scholarly depth. The project Anniki will try to function as a dynamic cultural medium that will inspire the participants to debate, interpret and reconnect with Tamil heritage, through community engagement sessions. 

The outcome of the project will be a card game that encourages the players to engage deeper with Tamil history. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be 100 card illustrations of historical events, and the game rule book and box art.   

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Practice programme in the manner in which it attempts to unpack the socio-cultural, linguistic and political dimensions of a region, bringing in an element of participatory art in the affective registers of experiencing historical time through gamification. 

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm by convening an online gathering of artists coordinating Explorations projects. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees