Nurturing Practices through Arts Platforms: Project Showcase@IFA with Anurupa Roy and Avril Stormy Unger | July 29, 2026 (RESCHEDULED)
Please Note: This event is being rescheduled and will be planned for a date later in August. . We apologise for any inconvenience.
How can artists learn from each other? And how can they come together to exchange knowledge and build sustainable frameworks for their creative practices?
Join us to listen to Anurupa Roy and Avril Stormy Unger talk about their respective projects under the Arts Platforms category of the Arts Practice programme at IFA. They created platforms in two completely different artistic domains—experimental puppet theatre and queer music production culture—that focused on skill-building, collaborative experimentation, and the cultivation of inclusive, safe spaces for artistic communities. The two arts platforms also had intensive mentorship sessions and public showcases to transition emerging practitioners from incubatory settings to live audiences, ensuring the long-term sustainability and vitality of their communities.
Anurupa will share insights from The Katkatha Puppet Fringe, an incubation platform in Delhi designed to train puppeteers and bridge the gap between formal training and professional application. It also encouraged cross-disciplinary collaborations with artists from backgrounds other than puppetry to cultivate a supportive environment that promotes the creation of new and experimental work.
Avril will speak about Flower Tools, a series of gatherings in Goa that brought together music production, performance, and DJ sets with queer artists. Through workshops on gender sensitisation with venue partners, technical workshops in DJing and music production in Ableton, the platform built professional networks and safe spaces for expression among queer, trans, and gender-diverse individuals.
Anurupa and Avril will be in conversation with John Xaviers, Programme Officer at IFA, unpacking the Arts Platforms category and the value of collaborative processes in arts and art-making.
Nurturing Practices through Arts Platforms
July 29, 2026 | 06:30 PM IST onwards
Register on Zoom or join us on live on Youtube
Anurupa Roy is a puppeteer, puppet designer, and director of puppet theatre who co-founded the Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust in 1998. She has directed more than 40 puppet productions for Katkatha and has designed puppet exhibitions for institutions such as the National Museum in Delhi and the Serendipity Arts Festival. She is the director of PuppetOscope, India's first international puppet film festival.
Avril Stormy Unger, also known as Chutney Mary, is a drag, stand-up, and DJ performer. Since 2023, she has been the co-founder of a queer trans collective called The Audacity! and Flower Tools. She has performed at numerous events in India and internationally. She has led community-building workshops across India and Germany, and is the creator of the self-published card game Chutney Mary's Queer Charades.
John Xaviers is Programme Officer: Arts Practice at IFA.
This session is organised as part of Project Showcase@IFA, a series of presentations to showcase, discuss and engage audiences with the diverse projects we support and implement across programmes.
The projects were implemented by India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) under the Arts Platforms category of the Arts Practice programme. We are currently inviting applications under the this category, so join us if you would like to know more!
Image courtesy: Anurupa Roy and Avril Stormy Unger