Maharashtra

Sandesh Bhandare


Grant Period: Over two months

For the editing, designing and printing of Tamasha: Ek Rangadi Gamat, a book in Marathi on the Tamasha folk theatre form. The book––one of the outcomes of an IFA-supported documentation project––will contain about 250 photographs accompanied by text that describes the different forms of Tamasha prevalent in Maharashtra as well as the lifestyles of its performers.

Urmila Bhirdikar


Grant Period: Over one year and six months

For research into the history of Marathi Farce in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The project will take into the account the social critique implicit in this form of theatre, as well as study female impersonation which was a characteristic of all Marathi theatre of this period. The research will lead to the writing of a monograph, translations of two Farces, and the creation of an archive of documents on the subject.

Nishtha Jain


Grant Period: Over nine months

For the production of a film on family photo-albums. The film will explore different elements of personal relationships to photo-albums by looking at how photographs can make for identification and a sense of continuity with the past, how they preserve memories, how albums are constructed based on an idealised notion of family, and how family albums can move from having purely personal to historical and archival relevance.

Nivedita Rao


Grant Period: Over three years

For research into the Bharuds––allegorical verses from the mid fifteenth century attributed to Sant Eknath. Compiled by the followers of the Bhakti saint, Bharuds exist in Maharashtra as written texts, apart from being recited as poems, sung as bhajans and kirtans, and dramatised during the pilgrimage of vari and other religious occasions. Combining ethnographic study of the vari with the social histories of the performers, the research will engage with the makings of this marginalised cultural tradition and examine the differences between its oral, written and performative forms.

Kamal Swaroop


Grant Period: Over three months

For identifying partner institutions, developing course books and film study capsules, and fixing a time schedule for a series of workshops to be conducted for students of film, design and creative writing. The eventual workshops will lead to the creation of a story-board on the life of Dadasaheb Phalke. By bringing together students of these various disciplines, the workshops will explore ‘the industrial mode of production’ in cinema—something which Phalke exemplified and which the current specialisation in the arts no longer allows for.

Ashok Sukumaran


Grant Period: Over two years

For creation of a series of public installations based on proto-typical electronic arrangements. The intention behind these pieces is to draw attention to the pervasively ‘wired’ nature of our environment. At the same time, by working with simple, almost every day arrangements and exhibiting outcomes in public spaces, the project will also form a critique of ‘hi-tech’ media art that operates in gallery or laboratory-like spaces alone. The installations will be documented and disseminated through an online archive.

Centre for Environmental Research and Education


Grant Period: Over two years

For the design and execution of an ‘Art-from-Waste’ project in several Mumbai schools, bringing together the fields of arts education and environmental education. Individual ‘art-from-waste’ ideas will be researched, developed and tested, and then implemented in schools and evaluated. The project will culminate in the publication of a handbook that will be distributed widely and will be directed primarily at art teachers who work with middle school children.

Sunil Shanbag


Grant Period: Over four months

For creation of a theatre production that will bring to light the suppressed history, subculture and marginalised lives of the mill workers of Mumbai, who lost their jobs en masse as a result of the textile strike in the 1980s. The mill workers once exercised a very strong influence on Mumbai’s culture but their plight has largely been ignored in the raging public debate and legal battles over the future development of the mill lands. The production will be shown to mainstream audiences as well as working class communities in the mill lands area and elsewhere.

Collective Research Initiatives Trust


Grant Period: Over three months

For an interdisciplinary workshop, led by an organisation researching Mumbai’s urban culture, to initiate multi-disciplinary collaborations on Mumbai’s industrial history and the Mill Lands in particular. The workshop is expected to catalyse a series of Industrial Museum Workshops and culminate in the setting up of an Industrial Museum Archive.

Shubhalakshmi Shukla


Grant Period: Over six months

For identifying indigenous documentation methodologies and translating Malayalam folklore into English. An art historian working closely with a folk group will study the pernicious implications of the caste system on the future of ritual performance. The group will also interact with a similar community based in Chattisgarh.

This Grant was amicably cancelled based on reasons mutually agreed upon by the Grantee and IFA due to unavoidable circumstances.

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