Request for Proposals: IFA x Lucknow Bioscope - The City Museum of Culture | Deadline: November 30, 2026

India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), in collaboration with Lucknow Bioscope - The City Museum of Culture, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh invites applications for Creative Projects under our Archives and Museums programme. The programme has a twofold objective: to provide arts practitioners and researchers with an opportunity to generate new, critical and creative approaches for public engagement with archives and museum collections; and to energise these spaces as platforms for dialogue and discourse. Read about earlier projects under this programme.

Deadline: November 30, 2026

Click to read the call in Hindi

About Lucknow Bioscope - The City Museum of Culture

Lucknow Bioscope - The City Museum of Culture is dedicated to explore, document, and celebrate the rich, layered cultural heritage of Lucknow. The museum has emerged from nearly two decades of Sanatkada Trust’s sustained engagement with Lucknow’s cultural heritage. Since 2006, Sanatkada has worked to preserve the city’s intangible traditions. In 2010 the Trust began formally documenting its oral histories through the Mahindra Sanatkada Lucknow Festival - creating platforms where artists, scholars, and community elders could share stories, memories, and lived experiences. Over time, it became evident that Lucknow needed a dedicated, permanent space to archive and animate these narratives beyond periodic festivals and events. In response, Lucknow Bioscope was conceptualised as a focused initiative and was formally registered in 2019 as an exclusive cultural platform under Sanatkada Trust. This vision took its first institutional form with the launch of the Lucknow Bioscope as a physical museum and a digital space on the Google Arts & Culture platform. Since then, it has curated thematic exhibitions such as Crafts and Costumes of Awadh, Lucknowi Bawarchi Khane (kitchens of Lucknow), Lucknow ke Gali Kooche (streets, alleys of Lucknow), Hunar-e-Aza - The Handmade Language of Grief and Malika-e-Ghazal - The Life and Legacy of Begum Akhtar, each drawing from archival photographs, recorded interviews, personal letters, short films, and community narratives.

About the Collection

For this collaboration, Lucknow Bioscope is opening up the Awadhi archive. Since 2019, Sanatkada Trust has built and preserved a comprehensive archive of craft heritage of Awadh. The archive and repository currently holds:

  • Over 2,000 archival photographs capturing indigenous crafts, artisans, and historical architecture 
  • Photographic Process documentation of the 35 crafts of the region
  • Access to original objects in different homes 
  • A curated collection of original ancestral garments and everyday textiles sourced directly from 25 Awadhi households
  • Extensive oral history recordings/diary notes and interviews with the families and artisans connected to these crafts
  • The archives have a section with photographs, videos and articles on disappearing crafts like Chatapati (a patch work like intricate joining of different shaped pieces of fabric, like fish scales or barfi)
  • Miniature clay figurines
  • Shahane lacquer bangles 
  • Rafu: Stitches used for darning fabric 
  • Photographic/video documentation of crafts used in Muharram Observances.
  • Audio Documentation of sounds of craft makers at work
  • A catalogue published by Sanatkada and collection of books on Awadhi Crafts and Pehnava (clothing).

About the Scope of IFA-Lucknow Bioscope Creative Projects

The entire collection from the Awadhi archive mentioned above will be available for the Creative projects. We invite proposals from those interested in engaging with materials at the archives bringing Awadh’s craft heritage into contemporary cultural conversations and making its stories, techniques, and artistic possibilities accessible to wider audiences through interactive and approachable outcomes. We are looking for project proposals that demonstrate an ability to think through interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches and methodologies for their outcomes. 

We encourage proposals that:

  • Focus on archival immersion and research with a specific line of enquiry. For example: disappearing crafts (Chatapati, Rafu, Shahane lacquer bangles, clay figurines) or Muharram crafts.
  • Are interested in co-creation with living artisans, work directly with karigars from Lucknow's craft network to make new work. For example, combining chikankari, zardozi and chatapati in one piece.
  • Demonstrate creative interpretation and imagine outcomes such as installation, a body of artworks and/ or an exhibition. This could include a sound based outcome built from the audio recordings of craft makers at work, or a mapping of architectural motifs onto textile motifs.
  • Are interested in public engagement and creating outreach based programmes of demonstrations, workshops, talks and craft walks at Lucknow Bioscope, to enliven the collections as platforms for newer dialogue. 
  • Energise the archive through creative outcomes like zine, publication focussing on their creative and/or artistic processes of the project which can rest with the said archive for the future.

Few key points:

  • The examples given above are suggestive. The applicants could choose to use the archives in any which way they creatively choose. 
  • Upon selection, the outcomes (exhibition/art works/installations etc) can be further developed in consultation with Lucknow Bioscope at Sanatkada Trust, and can possibly be showcased at the annual Mahindra Sanatkada Lucknow Festival or with travelling exhibitions of Luft e Lucknow across the country. 
  • Throughout the project duration Lucknow Bioscope will provide institutional support such as access to archives and knowledge database; development of exhibition concept; access to artisans.
  • Upon selection, the applicants will have access to the materials throughout the duration of the project as per the museum and archival policy of Lucknow Bioscope.
  • For more information about the collections and materials available for research, please contact Nagma Parveen, Craft Curator at Sanatkada Trust at nagmaparveen24@gmail.com.

Duration of the Project: Up to 15 months

Budget

  • The project cost should not exceed Rs 3,00,000/-
  • You can request for an honorarium not exceeding 30% of the proposed budget for the entire duration of the project. The total amount is inclusive of the honorarium.

Funds will cover only project-related costs and activities, and will not pay for infrastructure costs or equipment purchase.

Who Can Apply?

We seek applications from museum professionals, curators, designers, researchers and students of design, art-educators, writers, other creative practitioners, with a background in research and a keen interest in working with museum and archival collections, and experience in outreach and public programming.

Eligibility

  • Only Indian nationals can apply. This does not include PIO (Persons of Indian Origin) and OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) Card Holders.
  • Applicants must have a PAN card and one of the following for proof of identity and citizenship – Indian Passport or Aadhar Card or Voter’s ID in India.
  • Only individuals can apply. Organisations of any kind cannot apply.
  • If there are collaborators in the projects, they must also be Indian nationals.
  • Persons who have a past history of financial delinquency with IFA are not eligible.
  • Persons who have failed to deposit at IFA agreed deliverables from an earlier IFA grant are not eligible.
  • Persons who have previously received a letter from IFA disallowing them from applying in the future for any reason are not eligible.
  • Persons currently working on a project implemented by IFA are not eligible to apply. 
  • More than one individual can apply if they have a joint account. If they do not, then only one among them should apply with the others as collaborators.

Submission Guidelines

You can write your proposal in any Indian language, including English. 

Send us the following in a single email:

  • A proposal briefly describing the project (as outlined in the call with details of creative outcomes that one can imagine) that could be developed from the visual and textual materials mentioned above. The description should include the vision, approach, methodology and possible outcomes.
  • A brief note on other public programmes that could be developed around the proposed outcomes.
  • Detailed timeline for the project.
  • Detailed budget.
  • Your CV with a brief description of a project you have been involved with as a curator, arts practitioner, or researcher. 
  • Please send us a document with links and not attachments.

Email your applications or any queries to Ritwika Misra at ritwika@indiaifa.org with the subject line: Application for IFA-Lucknow Bioscope Creative Project 

Please note that all queries will be addressed only between 09:30 AM to 05:30 PM from Monday to Friday. 

Key Dates

  • Deadline for final applications: November 30, 2026
  • Interviews with shortlisted candidates: January 2026
  • The project will commence by January 2026 for a period of 15 months

IFA will implement this project with you directly as Project Coordinator.

Please note that IFA is committed to creating a safe environment that supports, respects, and protects everyone, including children. The applicant must be aligned with this and must uphold it at all times.

Images: Lucknow Bioscope

The Archives and Museums programme is supported by Tata Trusts.