Voices from the Field: Visual Arts and Film | 2020

An Overview of Scenarios and Needs for Current Creative, Infrastructural and Support
for the Visual Arts and Film in India 
A report by Chithra KS

The Arts Practice Programme is an important grant by the India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) available in the country that supports visual art practitioners who are engaged in critiquing the normative paradigms and practices that generate newer discourses. The Voices from the Field is a survey conducted in order to gain a deeper understanding of the current needs in arts funding in visual arts that can help shape the future-path for the significant role the grants-making bodies can play. By reaching out to the select practitioners and professionals, the information and views on various aspects of arts practice and funding in general to the Indian context and specific to the IFA were gathered. The feedback has ranged from the opinion on the IFA’s Art Practice Programme to the functioning of the funding bodies; the existing gaps in arts funding and emergent needs; different ways of supporting projects/ art production/ practice and the challenges and opportunities ahead for the visual arts in the current situation. 

The objectives of the research aimed at gaining knowledge on two broad areas: the functioning of the funding bodies by looking at the various operational aspects such as kinds of practices supported, selection criterion, their involvement in the process of the art production, evaluation of success and failure by offering critical viewpoints on their engagement with the art practitioners; and, identifying the current needs of the artists in India and the kind of support they require. Another important objective was to gather feedback on the IFA’s Arts Practice program that could potentially help in identifying areas for self-reflection and internal reviewing. Within these objectives, I have attempted to gain a nuanced understanding of the significance of support systems for arts practitioners, and the crucial role the funding bodies can play in the field of visual arts and in the careers of the creative practitioners, and how this ecosystem is socially and culturally relevant and necessary. 

The respondents chosen for this study hailed from different professions within visual arts including video art, photography, design and other fields such as theatre, film and literature. It included scholars, artists, academicians, curators, and cultural managers, many of them concurrently involved in various roles as mentors, jury members and board of trustees for funding agencies. Many of the respondents have had their engagement with the IFA in different capacities over the years that reflected in the retrospective feedback on certain aspects.

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