Korak Misra

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will facilitate archival research and ethnographic fieldwork towards creative interventions on 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. This project is in collaboration with Chandernagore College Museum in Chandannagar, West Bengal. Set up in 2023, the museum is located in Chandannagar, West Bengal, a city that was once a flourishing trading centre, an erstwhile French colony and is an important cultural site at the present. Born out of the Heritage Studies initiative undertaken by the Chandernagore College, the museum was set up to commemorate the legacy of the armed freedom fighters associated with the College and the city of Chandannagar. The museum also foregrounds the social, political, economic and cultural heritage of the city. Korak Misra is the Project Coordinator of this project along with Kaustav Dhara as the primary collaborator.

Korak Misra is an independent film director and editor based out of Kolkata, West Bengal. His practice revolves around shaping narratives from longform observational material. As an artist he is interested in exploring the intersections of memory, heritage and cinema with an archival approach. He has worked with Bengal Film Archive where he curated and edited a series of archival-based short documentaries that reframe rare materials, oral histories and forgotten cinematic voices. Korak interest lies in foregrounding and strengthening role of archives as a living and accessible repository, which emerges as a prominent feature in his films. His earlier work titled The Music Shop – Symphony of the City, is a documentary that assembles and reorganises archival footage to narrate the story of intergenerational tradition of classical instrument makers, an intangible heritage of Kolkata. Korak studied Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal. In 2022, he was recognised as one of the 75 Creative Minds of Tomorrow at International Film Festival of India (IFFI). Kaustav Dhara will be his primary collaborator. Kaustav is a cinematographer and photographer with a Post-Graduation in Cinema, specializing in Motion Picture Photography, from Roopkala Kendra under Government of West Bengal. Given his consistent interest, experience as a filmmaker in memory, heritage and archives Korak is best suited to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

The Chandernagore College Museum is a fairly young museum dedicated to showcasing the lesser-known aspects of the city of Chandannagar. Distributed across four rooms, the display in the museum focusses on the history and evolution of the city, the under-explored history of the lives and legacies of revolutionaries and such activities that emanated from the city and other cultural legacies like weaving, wrestling, kabigaan- a popular performance form in 19th century Bengal. While the museum presents the history of the city fairly well, what remains absent is the history of the institution itself. The emergence of the Chandernagore College Museum is inextricably tied to the history of French colonial rule and the revolutionary histories that the city sustained. Keeping this at the centre, this project will create a documentary film on the college. It is tentatively titled চন্দননগর কলেজ মিউজিয়াম: ঐতিহ্যের চিরস্থায়ী কণ্ঠস্বর (Chandannagore College Museum: Heritage’s Enduring Whisper.

 Inspired by “Museum without Walls” by French writer and politician André Malraux, this project through creative intervention of films and other audio-visual mediums, aims to take the vision and idea of Chandernagore College Museum beyond its physical premises. The Project Coordinator and his collaborator have designed the project to create four outcomes, each of which will be based on extensive research on primary archival materials, ethnographic interviews with citizens of Chandannagar, historians and other stakeholders. The research findings will make its ways into a documentary of about 40 minutes in a non-linear fashion. The first chapter of the documentary will focus on the emergence of Chandannagar, tracing the story of the establishment of first primary school in 1862, which eventually led to the foundation of the College. The second chapter will look into the story of the Chandannagore College Museum, the contested past of the heritage building which hosts the museums and the efforts of renovation and conservation that shaped its present structure. The third chapter delves into the heart of the museum, presenting the making of the museum, its rooms and collections. The final and concluding section brings to the forefront the legacy of the college and its relationship with the city. Using a non-linear narrative, archival images, illustrations, animation and videos shot on ground the film hopes to tell the story of this young museum and its institution to a larger audience. In order to disseminate the film beyond its immediate context, the Project Coordinator will add English and French subtitles along with Bangla which will be the primary language. 

The research findings will also be used to create an audio guide for the visitors which the audience can access by scanning QR codes. The audio-guide is planned to create a multi-sensorial experience for the audience who can listen in detail about the artefacts in each of the rooms of the museum. To expand the reach of the museum and present it to a wider world a 360-degree virtual tour will be produced that can be uploaded on the existing website. This would offer a glimpse of the museum to anyone interested from any corner of the world. For a young museum this offers a good opportunity of visibility and to create new audience.  Using the popular form of podcast and video blog the Project Coordinator aims to bolster the presence of the museum where experts, senior citizens of the city, historians and even past and present students of the college will be invited to share about the city, encouraging a sense of belonging and relationship with their city and surroundings. 

The Archives and Museums programme at IFA intends to explore how museums can emerge as sites of discourses and new narratives for audiences beyond the scholarly realm. This project, through a creative intervention aligns with the vision of the programme. The entire project creates multiple points of engagement with the museum and has the potential to address a wide range of audience. 

The Project Coordinator has divided the project timeline into four phases that will explore using digital storytelling, animation and sound-design. The first phase of three months will be towards recee, preparation of script, and formation of team required for the shoot, research and interviews. This phase will also finalise the animation requirements and preparation towards the 360-degree virtual tour and podcast. The second phase will comprise shooting for the documentary, recording visuals of the museum collection and map the historical sites of the city along with conducting interviews of scholars, residents and other experts. The last two phases of six months will be dedicated to the post production of all the elements including final staging, onsite installation at the museum, handover, upload and possibly a launch. 

The outcomes of the project will be the completed documentary, 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 and the vlog. In addition, any additional recordings and transcripts arising from the research, interview and production will also be part of the deliverables. 

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees. 

This project is supported by Tata Trusts.