Two Archival Fellowships at CSSS, Calcutta (CLOSED)

India Foundation for the Arts 
in collaboration with 
Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta
invites applications for
Two Archival Fellowships
Application deadline: December 30,2014
 

India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) in collaboration with the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, (CSSSC) invites applications for Archival Fellowships for a period of 8-10 months, to support practitioners - curators, artists, art historians, film-makers - to work with the materials contained in the CSSSC archives. Two fellowships will be awarded. The purpose is to give applicants the opportunity to engage with the visual archives collection at the CSSSC in innovative and original ways towards a tangible outcome such as an exhibition, film, performance, publication, etc at the end of 10 months in October/November, 2015.

IFA’s Archival Fellowships have been initiated with the two-fold objective of providing arts practitioners with an opportunity to generate new, critical and creative approaches to public engagement with archives and energising archives as spaces for dialogue and discourse.
 
About the CSSSC Archive: 
The archive began in 1993 with the main intention of microfilming a series of 19th and 20th century Bengali periodicals which were languishing in different library holdings. The interest in accessing a parallel body of pictorial and photographic genres from the same region and period led to the forming of a complimentary visual archive in 1996, with funding from IFA. The visual archive aimed to document, catalogue and collate the scattered collections of various individuals, families, printing firms or small institutions and trusts. The spread of the material that the archive has documented over the years has been defined by the collections it has accessed, bringing together an eclectic mix of pictorial, graphic, and photographic images, from an assortment of private and public holdings in the city.
 
A wide variety of visual genres of 19th and 20th century Bengal are housed in the cultural history archives of the CSSSC. A range of cultural products – illustrated books and journals; popular paintings and prints; posters and hoardings; cover designs, advertisements and commercial art productions; images from modern art, cinema and theatre; and last but not the least, changing forms of photography, both amateur and professional – have come into the institution’s archives.
 
This collection offers interesting material on the manifold visual cultures of Bengal for the curator or researcher to re-visit, re-examine, and re-present anew in different contexts. Such an archive of cultural productions of the past one and a half centuries has huge potential in facilitating new kinds of research and creative projects. For more information about the background and history of the archives, please see the website: http://www.cssscal.org
 
For more information about the archive, please contact kamalika.mukherjee@gmail.com
 
About the Fellowship:
  • Applicant profile: We seek applications from practitioners with previous curatorial experience and a strong interest in archives. Practitioners who are Indian nationals or have been a residing in India for five or more years are eligible to apply.
  • Financial assistance and other support: Each fellowship provides an honorarium of Rs 2,00,000 for the duration of 10 months and research facilities within the archives of the CSSSC. Work space will be provided by the CSSSC for the duration of the Fellowship, as well as the opportunity to interact with the students and faculty of the CSSSC.
  • A separate budget will be provided for the final outcome.
Important dates:
  • The deadline for receiving applications is December 30, 2014.
  • Shortlisted candidates will be informed by January 15, 2015.
  • Interviews with shortlisted candidate are expected to take place on January 24, 2015 in Kolkata.
  • The Fellowship will commence on February 16, 2015 for a period of 10 months. 
Application Process:
Your application must include:
  • A letter of interest explaining how you would benefit from this Archival Fellowship. Please identify aspects of your practice that you think will be honed and further developed during the course of the Fellowship.
  • A brief description of a project you have been involved with either as a curator, arts practitioner or researcher. The description should include the vision, the approach, the processes and the outcomes that have resulted from that project. Please include documentation of the project, which could include 6 to 8 scanned or printed images with titles and date, DVD (max 4 minutes), catalogues, artworks, performances, or reviews.
  • Your curriculum vitae.
Please address any queries regarding the fellowships to suman@indiaifa.org or call +91-80-2341 4681 / 82.
Please post the required documents to IFA in an envelope marked ‘Archival Fellowship: IFA & CSSSC by December 30, 2014.
 
Archival Fellowship: IFA & CSSSC
India Foundation for the Arts
'Apurva', Ground Floor, 
No 259, 4th Cross, RMV 2nd Stage, 2nd Block
Bangalore - 560 094, India