For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that aims to explore the megaliths in Mizoram as archives that shape contemporary Mizo identity and aesthetics. Through a combination of ethnographic study and artistic collaboration, the project will examine how megaliths function as repositories of indigenous imagination and how they resonate within contemporary artistic practices, including painting, sculpture, and digital media. The outcome of this project will include a visual archive of photographs, a bilingual photo book, a critical essay examining the megaliths as indigenous archives and their contemporary reinterpretations, new artworks created in collaboration with contemporary artists, and participatory workshops and dialogues engaging youth and community members in Mizoram. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final reports, will include the photo book and the research essay, and fieldwork documentation. Project funds will pay for contract fees, workshop, printing, travel and living and communication.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that aims to generate new ethnographic art-historical knowledge on Husayn-centric devotion by exploring the relationship between piety, labour, and materiality by mapping a “Husayn-scape” from western Uttar Pradesh to Bengal, tracing how Shiʿi and Sufi devotion to Husayn is translated into built forms (imambaras, Karbalas, dargahs) and ritual objects (taziya, alam, zarih). The outcome of this project will be scholarly essays that will foreground new ethnographic art-historical knowledge on Husayn-centric devotion, an online interdisciplinary seminar, a public workshop organised as part of the project and a website. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables, along with the final reports, will include six peer-reviewed art history essays and three photo-essays, documentation of the seminar and the workshop, and a dedicated website hosting photographs, documents, and recorded voices, ensuring open-access digital preservation of research on Husayn-centric devotional spaces. Project funds will pay for contract fees, travel and living, purchase of equipment, publication, materials and stationery.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that will investigate the legacy and visual practices of Kamat Foto Flash, a pioneering photo studio that shaped the visual culture of Bombay cinema from the 1940s to the 2000s. By treating the studio’s vast archive of production stills as a vital site of cinematic memory, the study explores how the technology of photography influenced film publicity, star-making, and aesthetic trends across decades. The outcome of this project will include recordings of key informant interviews and a curated exhibition of images from the Kamat archive, focusing on the study of film ephemera and photo stills. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final reports, will be the audiovisual documentation of the interviews and the exhibition. Project funds will pay for travel and living, contract fees and exhibition.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that seeks to explore the landscape of Qawwali singing in India through the artistic lives of Muslim women performers, along with their journeys from art practice to performance, and how they navigate and negotiate between desire and devotion, career and honour, visibility and containment, and selective loving of a culture and tradition. The project employs a visual ethnographic approach, combining participant observation, interviews, documentation, and archival research. The outcome of this project will be a short documentary film that captures the stories and performance journeys of at least two qawwalan at different stages in their careers, along with songs contributed by them. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final reports, will include the documentary film and Sufi songs sung by the artists and contributors. Project funds will pay for contract fees and travel and living.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that aims to deepen the documentation and critical study of the Somana Kunita masked ritual-dance and its sobāne songs in Hassan district, Karnataka. The study will record and translate sobāne, map their histories and local variations, and stage practice-led re-enactments and community conversations that tease out the gendered stories hidden within this living oral tradition. The outcome of the project will be a collection of Somana Kunita and sobāne recordings, a reflective documentation of research findings that situates the practice historically and personally, and a final performance. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final reports, will include the audiovisual archive of the songs and the documentation of research findings. Project funds will pay for contract fees, travel and living, purchase of books, printing, exhibition, documentation, and purchase of equipment.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that documents the relationship between boats, boat-making, Bhatiyali, and related song traditions and race cultures among Miya communities of the Char-Chapori regions in Assam. It treats boats as material-cultural lifelines and explores song repertoires, boat craft, and river performance as modes of community memory and resilience. The outcomes of this project will be a short documentary film, an audio collection of Bhatiyali and related river songs, a visual ethnographic essay and exhibition. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final reports, will include the edited film, the photo essay, and audio recordings of songs. Project funds will pay for contract fees, travel and living, exhibition, hire of equipment and hire of venue.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that documents and analyses the ritual and performative life of Muharram in selected coastal and riverine towns of southern Tamil Nadu (Eruvadi, Melapalayam, Kayalpattinam, and Puliyangudi). It foregrounds processions, devotional recitations, martial and fire-related performances, material culture, and foodways to understand how these practices shape local memory. The outcome of this project will be a bilingual research report/essay, a short documentary film, a curated photo archive, and a digital repository of audio-visual materials with a bilingual glossary. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final reports, will include the bilingual essay and glossary, the edited documentary film, audiovisual files, and accompanying metadata. Projects funds will pay for contract fees, travel and living, printing, communication, hire of equipment and purchase of equipment.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that aims to study the Arabana Muttu in Malabar and examine how this ritualistic art form shapes ethical habits, collective emotions, and local subjectivities through embodied training, ritual, and performance. The project combines ethnography and filmmaking to document how Arabana Muttu moves between devotional and secular spaces, especially within the Kerala school Kalolsavam circuit. The outcomes of this project will be a full-length documentary film in Malayalam, a scholarly monograph in English, a curated digital archive of recorded performances and interviews, and a package of edited audio-visual clips, field notes, and contextual materials for public and scholarly use. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final reports, will include the documentary film, the monograph manuscript, the digital archive, and the accompanying metadata. Projects funds will pay for contract fees, travel and living, hire of equipment, purchase of equipment, archive and library fees, printing, purchase of books, stationery and communication.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA that will facilitate archival research and ethnographic fieldwork towards production of creative interventions encapsulating the history of Chandannagar and the Chandernagore College Museum. The project will delve in to the history of the city, the impact of French rule, revolutionary histories and the various tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and how the Chandernagore College and the Museum stands as witness to all these transformations. The outcomes of the project will be the documentary film, onsite audio-guide in the museum, the 360-degree virtual tour for the website of the museum, the audio-visual podcast and video vlog for social media platforms and/or website. The Project Coordinator’s final deliverables along with the final reports will be the copy of the documentary film in Bangla with French and English subtitles, files of the audio-guide, the files of the 360-degree virtual tour, the audio-visual recordings and the final cut of the podcast episodes, the vlog and any additional recordings. This is a collaboration with the Chandernagore College Museum, West Bengal. Project funds will pay for production, contract fees, hire of equipment, hire of venue, purchase of equipment and travel and living.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions that envisions creating an artist’s book/glossary through onsite engagements, developing small devices such as the Lorrain Glass and Thaumatrope with short videos, and producing a temporary landscape archive. The project inquires into the spaces of transitions, reuses, impositions and superimpositions, anchoring the ghats (riverbanks) between the Rabindra Setu and the Vidyasagar Setu along the Hooghly River in Kolkata. Focussing on temporary spaces that are part of the urban fabric and improvement-narratives, it seeks to trace, contest, and retrace the points fronted by the planning archives through a critical lens. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be an artist’s book/glossary, the small devices produced, short videos, and documentation materials from the process and the temporary landscape archive. Project funds will pay for contract fee, production, printing, documentation, travel and living, hire of venue, and archive fee.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions that is a speculative non-fiction, an exercise in world-building, examining alternate realities and new mythologies titled SuperOrganism. The outcome of this project will be a book – printed and bound, illustrations: prints and paintings, and an audio-visual installation The print edition will use story (world-building) as a medium, interspersed with academic writing, illustrating the characters of the Minstrel, a wandering storyteller, and Celeste, a modern-day perfumer. The installation will draw upon stories of both the characters and create a participatory experience for the viewer. Both together and apart, the two works will explore identity, belonging, language and community. Project Coordinator's deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be documentation materials from the project, and the book. Project funds will pay for contract fees, hire of equipment, materials, travel and living, and hire of venue.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions that will focus on the creation of a mixed-media documentary film titled Ballads of Ponnani. The project revolves around a 65-year-old music club Basanth Bahar, where three to four nights a week, a group of men gather beneath a single photograph of Mohammed Rafi, alongside portraits of legendary Malayalam singers like KJ Yesudas, and the room fills with the soulful strains of Bollywood classics and traditional Mappila Pattu. At the heart of the story are three men and their labouring bodies torn from the daily toil, but finding renewal through a fading musical tradition of a withering music club. The Project Coordinator's deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be documentation materials from the project, and the documentary film. Project funds will pay for contract fees, hire of equipment, travel and living, consumables and hire of venue.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions towards an Illustrated Art Book titled In the land I was born. The project coordinator has been collecting and documenting fascinating oral narratives, tales from his native land of Arunachal Pradesh. For this project, he will collect more tales and preserve them as artworks on paper. The art book will provide a well-designed, curated journey to its readers – taking them through a voyage shaped by memory, folklore and landscape. The written word will act as an accompaniment, providing context to the illustrations, without overpowering them. The Project Coordinator's deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be documentation materials from the project, and the art book. Project funds will pay for contract fees, travel and living, hire of venue, materials, and printing.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Explorations that will explore micro-movements in nature, through meditative observations captured through drawings, sounds and videos. This will include lo-fi kinetic, sound installations, zoetrope experiments that will translate kinaesthetic slowness into a shared sensory experience. The outcome of the project will be a series of small experimental studies in drawing and sound to capture micro-movements observed in nature, along with process-led open-ended kinetic trials with a zoetrope. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the audio-visual documentation of the artistic process. Project funds will pay for Contract Fees, Hire of Equipment, Materials, Documentation, Purchase of Books, and Travel and Living.
For the implementation of a Foundation Project by IFA under Productions that is towards a manuscript of a graphic journal The Art-Educators’ Diary, an illustrated account of the work of art-educators in the form of comics in Hindi. The book will hold stories and experiences of art-educators working in alternate learning spaces for children - care homes, learning centers, libraries and NGO run schools. This will be a handbook which will include research, stories, anecdotes, challenges, conversations with students and art educators, and even lesson plans and curriculum through hand-drawn comics. The outcome of this project will be a graphic journal for art educators. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be documentation materials from the project and the graphic journal. Project funds will pay for contract fee, printing, travel and living, materials, workshop, and communication.
