For research at the Munshi Aziz Bhat Museum of Central Asian & Kargil Trade Artifacts in Kargil. It will culminate in an exhibition that will open in the Museum in September, 2014. The exhibition will re-present and contextualize the large collection of historical and ethnographic objects in the museum by constructing narratives around these objects, texts and legacies of the people who have traversed these regions.
For a 15-day puppetry workshop for nine participants from diverse artistic backgrounds with a traditional master Togalu Gombeyata practitioner. First among a series to be held over the next two years, the workshop expects to kickstart the process of building a robust discourse and pedagogy for puppetry in India through intensive training, discussions and artistic exchanges between traditional and contemporary puppeteers and other arts practitioners who draw from puppetry in form, content or aesthetics.
For an experimental HD video film on the Mars One project that aims to set up the first human settlement in Mars. Referencing the works of Jules Verne and Franklin Story Musgrave, the video will include scientific reports, plans, charts, confessional videos, personal journals, popular cinema clips and clips of varying audio frequencies interspersed with interviews with future astronauts. The artists also plan to create an exhibition and performance from the material created and gathered for the video.
For the study and documentation of landmark art exhibitions in India from 1947 to the present. It will include those exhibitions that were planned but did not materialise, thereby attempting to create a framework by which to address and analyse how exhibitions typify attitudes, thoughts and articulations on contemporary art.
For research into the construction of the genre of science fiction in Hindi by shedding light on how writers have used their own understanding of both science and the potential of science to perceive, comment on and reinvent their past, present and the future. It will also look at how productions, articulations and manifestations of science fiction influence aural and visual cultures in India.
For a ceramic artist’s experimentation with different clay bodies and firing techniques to make a large-scale ceramic installation, consisting of individual units of varying shapes and sizes, to be exhibited during the India Art Fair in 2015.
For research towards and the making of a series of animations that will explore movement in drawing, in a site-specific context. The final outcome will be animations that make visible facets of everyday experiences in Delhi, as recreated through memory and drawing, and developed and exhibited as in-process work in the Nehru Place market.
For a two-day colloquium titled ‘Locating Art Histories: Dialogues on Language, Writing, and Research in India’ organised by the Asia Art Archive (AAA) in New Delhi. The colloquium builds upon the Bibliography project AAA has been doing for the last three years, and will engage with the question of art writing in various Indian languages.
For research into a shawl painting tradition from Nagaland called Tsungkotepsu, towards an examination of the visual, material and social cultures of the Naga tribes. The study of Tsungkotepsu, as woven form of expression, will enhance understanding of how traditions reinvent themselves by merging with ‘larger’ traditions to ensure their own survival. The research will result in a monograph,a film, and the creation of puppets inspired by Tsungkotepsu motifs.
For the research and documentation of printed images from popular Urdu literature produced in the first half of the 20th century, leading to the creation of a curated website. This project will examine when and why Urdu went from being a mainstream language reflecting the cultural plurality of North India, to one associated with Islam.
