Arts Practice 2021 onwards

The Arts Practice programme seeks to implement projects that enable artists to expand their present range of practices in new directions. These could question accepted conventions, push new frontiers in content, form and medium, explore new modes of engagement with space, audience and communities, foregrounding a spirit of experimentation.

Projects could take the form of an exploration of nascent ideas, production of an artistic work, creation of spaces for exchange and dialogue through seminars, residencies and workshops, and fostering of platforms that attempt to build solidarities among practitioners. The programme encourages work in Indian languages other than English and collaborations within and across practices. You are welcome to discuss and develop your proposal through interactions with IFA staff and send draft proposals in written and audio/video formats.

Just as IFA is committed to implementing projects in languages other than English, we are also committed to broadening access to our programmes across various language constituencies. 

Please find here translations of the Programme note in a few languages:

Bengali | Hindi | Kannada | Malayalam | Marathi | Punjabi | Tamil | Telugu | Urdu

The programme implements projects under the following categories:

  • Explorations:
    To probe, test and play around with ideas that are nascent, risky or unprecedented, which may or may not lead into the making of an artwork later on. This could include researching, script-writing, jamming, storyboarding, rehearsing, sampling and other forms of exploratory work that are used to examine ideas.
    Budget: Up to a maximum of Rs 1,00,000/-
    Calendar: Proposals are invited once a year through an open Request for Proposals.
    The Request for Proposals for Explorations is closed for the year 2024-25.
  • Productions:
    To create performative, aural, visual, digital, literary, or interdisciplinary work which includes these forms. This could include theatre, dance and music performances, installations, exhibitions, books, zines and other publications, film and moving image presentations, games, interfaces and other digital artworks, and other forms yet to be imagined.
    Budget: Up to a maximum of Rs 5,00,000/-
    Calendar: Proposals are invited once a year through an open Request for Proposals.
    The Request for Proposals for Productions is closed for the year 2024-25.
  • Workshops/ Residencies:
    To create environments and situations which foster exchange, dialogue, debate, learning, and mentorship. This may include residencies that nurture artists, encourage collaboration and facilitate experimentation; workshops, or other forms of gathering that help build knowledge, generate insight and expand arts practice/s.
    Budget: Up to a maximum of Rs 3,00,000/-
    ​Calendar: Proposals are accepted throughout the year.
    Click here for details.
  • Seminars:
    To create situations which foster exchange and dialogue, and debate artistic questions in the language. This could include bringing together artists and practitioners from various disciplines to open up their creative processes and engage in dialogues where they can explore and learn from each other’s experiences, and help in building knowledge, generate insights, and expand arts practices.
    Budget: Up to a maximum of Rs 3,00,000/-
    ​Calendar: Proposals are invited once a year through an open Request for Proposals.
    The Request for Proposals for Seminars is currently open for the year 2024-25. Click here for details.
  • Arts Platforms:
    To build and stimulate networks and spaces - physical or otherwise - that bring together artists within or across practices on common ground with the aim of building solidarities, enabling creativity and sustainability of their practices.
    Budget: Up to a maximum of Rs 3,00,000/-
    Calendar: Proposals are accepted throughout the year.
    ​Click here for details.

For all queries about the programme, please email john@indiaifa.org or mridupankhi@indiaifa.org

The Arts Practice programme launched in 2014 was reviewed in 2020 by a panel of experts comprising Justin McCarthy, Neelam Mansingh, Gitanjali Rao and Sanjay Kak. As inputs to the review process, we solicited views on the support required for arts practice from the larger field of practitioners and supporters in India (Please refer to our Voices from the Field Reports for Visual Arts and Films and for Performance and Literature). The panel made a set of recommendations to IFA. This rearticulated Arts Practice programme is an outcome of those recommendations.