Project 560

This programme was closed in 2025. 

Bangalore, What’s your Pincode?

Turn Bangalore into a stage, a canvas, a notebook or a digital courtyard!
Tap into its varied voices, spaces, histories, memories, aspirations, and expressions.
Delve into the city's layered pasts, engage with its many presents, or imagine diverse futures.

Who is the city? What does it mean to be a Bangalorean? Where do the strengths and challenges of the city lie? If Bangalore is on your mind, Project 560 is for you.

Project 560 is committed to a long-term, continuous engagement with the city.

Projects under this programme are implemented in the following categories:

• Neighbourhood Engagements: IFA implements projects that engage with the spaces, stories, and people of their neighbourhood in Bangalore. Such engagements could be an event or a series of events that include storytelling sessions, music, street performances, temporary / permanent installations, mapping exercises, walks and so on, that would enable people to rethink their neighbourhoods and use the arts and culture to express the joys and challenges of living together. Applicants must be based in Bangalore and the project has to be undertaken in Bangalore.
  Budget: Up to a maximum of Rs 35,000.
  Calendar: Proposals are invited once a year through an open Request for Proposals.
• Arts Projects (Research/Practice): IFA implements projects that creatively engage with the city's pasts, presents or futures through critical inquiry. Collaborative projects between artists and researchers are also encouraged. Applicants must be based in Bangalore and the project has to be undertaken in Bangalore.
  Budget: Up to a maximum of Rs 4,00,000.
  Calendar: Proposals are invited once a year through an open Request for Proposals.
• Curated Artistic Engagements: IFA implements year-long curated artistic and cultural engagements that reflect upon the city by asking questions or by offering multiple imaginations of the cosmopolis. Engagements could include storytelling, music, performances, installations, exhibitions, gaming, lecture-performances, public discussions and other such activities that would offer new perspectives, foreground unheard voices, and encourage people to reimagine the city through the arts and culture. Applicants must be based in Bangalore and the project has to be undertaken in Bangalore.
  Budget: Up to a maximum of Rs 5,00,000.
  Calendar: Proposals are accepted throughout the year.

Namma 560. Namma Project. Namma Pincode.

The Project 560 programme is made possible with support from BNP Paribas India.

Following two editions of Project 560 in 2014 and 2015, IFA organised a Roundtable Meeting with an external panel of experts in August 2016, towards sharpening the focus for the coming years. The experts on the panel were Suresh Jayaram, Ramesh Aravind, Deepa Ganesh, Jeebesh Bagchi, Tushar Joag, Zac O’Yeah and Anant Maringanti. Vivek Shanbhag participated in absentia through a note he sent. Their recommendations shaped the current Project 560 programme and its project categories which was launched in 2018.

In 2025, The Project 560 Festival was organised across the city of Bangalore over two weekends, celebrating 36 diverse projects under the programme, through curated walks, exhibitions, workshops, dramatised readings, and conversations, at Science Gallery, 1Shanthiroad Studio/Gallery, Sabha Blr, and Studio 345. Two roundtables were held with artists and a diverse group of practitioners from Bangalore. The first comprised Astha Chauhan, Arzu Mistry, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Naveen Mahantesh, Pravar Chaudhary, Rupali Gupte, Sharanya Ramprakash, and Suresh Jayaram, while Roundtable 2 comprised comprising artists, educators, writers - Kavya Murthy, Lakshmi Karunakaran, Nisha Abdulla, Poornima Sukumar, Sharanya Ramprakash, Shantamani Muddiah, Suresh Jayaram, and Vasudhendra. Each panel made a set of recommendations to IFA and the current Project 560 programme is an outcome of those recommendations (also see the Voices from the Field Report).