For the first time since IFA’s inception, two of its programme divisions—Arts Research and Documentation and Extending Arts Practice—are collaborating on a new initiative, The Archival Fellowships. This initiative aims to encourage archives to play a more dynamic role in building discourse in the arts. It supports artists to engage creatively with different archives while simultaneously enriching their own arts practice...
We launched Big Picture II, Artists for a home for the Arts, on 04 October 2011 in Bangalore. 89 artists donated 103 artworks including paintings, sculptures, photographs and works in mixed media for this show. Renowned artist Rekha Rodwittiya opened the exhibition and was in conversation with curator Abhishek Poddar and IFA’s Deputy Director, Arundhati Ghosh, on the importance of supporting the arts. IFA is grateful to all the artists who have very generously donated artwork in support of IFA...
Kali-Kalisu is an arts-based training initiative for government school teachers across Karnataka. It is a joint project of IFA and Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore. This is the third year of the initiative, and IFA is organising regional conferences to reinforce the work done under Kali-Kalisu. These conferences invite teachers trained under Kali-Kalisu to share and discuss their experiences. The teachers also get to observe and interact with the work being done by independent artist-educators...
We are happy to announce the publication of Beyond the Proscenium: Reimagining the Space for Performance edited by Anmol Vellani. It was underwritten by a grant from the Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust. Beyond the Proscenium explores how performing artists have conceived of space in performance, used existing theatre facilities imaginatively or created alternative spaces for performances. We hope this book will serve as a resource for the many people invested in enabling, creating, programming and negotiating performance infrastructure in India...
In February 2010, India Foundation for the Arts made six grants under our Arts Research and Documentation programme. Badri Narayan Tiwari from Allahabad is exploring the Bhagait folk tradition of the marginalised and Dalit; Paromita Vohra of Mumbai is working on a book on the evolution of the India documentary film and Savia Viegas of Goa traces the trajectory of Angelo da Fonseca’s work and the formation of complex national identities within colonial Portuguese Goa...
The second phase of Kali-Kalisu: IFA’s initiative towards incorporating the arts in education by training schoolteachers across rural Karnataka started this June at Nrityagram with a series of intensive Master Resource Person (MRP) training workshops. Conducted in partnership with the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore, there were thirty-five beneficiaries of the training, of which twenty-five were government schoolteacher participants from last year (Phase I) and the remaining ten were freelance arts education activists...
We have quite a bit to share from the last three months of 2010. IFA won the India NGO of the Year Award 2009 (medium category) administered by the Resource Alliance and supported by The Rockefeller Foundation. The award recognises not-for-profit organisations for setting good standards and practices in resource mobilisation, accountability and transparency, and for demonstrating excellent stewardship of philanthropic resources...
"A School Without the Arts is Like a Place Without Water"
A two-day conference jointly organised by GoetheInstitut/Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore and IFA—Arts Education: Contexts, Concepts and Practices in Schools—brought together a fascinating range of perspectives drawn from educational policy, classroom practices and artist-led interventions. Held over December 11 and 12 in Bangalore, the conference was aimed at showcasing and extending IFA's "Kali-Kalisu" initiative, a series of Goethe-Institut-supported arts pedagogy training workshops which have brought arts education to over 500 teachers in rural and small-town Karnataka...
Bangalore's Sanket Trust recently received an IFA grant to organise a one-day "Teacher Training Initiative (TTI)" and a one-day symposium on "Theatre Pedagogy for Children" (August 31 and September 04). Both were intended to spark a long term engagement of teachers with education through theatre. Ranga Shankara, the theatre initiative of the Sanket Trust, has a broad-based Theatre for Children programme called AHA! and these two one-day activities formed part of Ranga Shankara's first ever theatre festival exclusively for children...
KM Madhusudhan is making a 16mm fictional film on the Indian magic lantern or Shambharik Kharolika, a late 19th century innovation involving the use of painted images on glass to create cinema projections. Film, television and theatre actor, Jyoti Dogra created The Doorway, an exploration of real and imagined stories in the tradition of Grotowski’s Theatre Laboratory. Meanwhile, filmmaker Vaibhav Abnave is exploring the history of experimentation in Marathi theatre with special reference to playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar...