Request for Proposals for Explorations (Arts Practice) | Deadline Extended: August 31, 2021 (CLOSED)

India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) invites applications for
Explorations
Under its Arts Practice programme

Application deadline extended to Tuesday, August 31, 2021

The Arts Practice programme seeks to implement projects where artists expand their present range of practices in new directions. These could question accepted conventions, push new frontiers in content, form and medium, explore new modes of engagement with space, audience and communities, foregrounding a spirit of experimentation.

Programme Officer John Xaviers talks about the application process for Explorations
​under the Arts Practice programme in this video below

Explorations:

While practicing the arts we might sometimes stumble upon an idea or feel an urge to venture into a direction that is fresh and exciting. However, given the context and location of our practice, these ideas may be unfamiliar and thus the impending journeys into its foray, tentative and uncertain. We may at the time know nothing about where it will lead us to or what it might clearly mean for our present practice. And yet we feel the draw, understand its import and sense the necessity of following through. A little support at these times may be of help. 

Under the Arts Practice programme, we invite proposals for such Explorations that seek to probe, test and play around with ideas that are nascent, risky or unprecedented, which may or may not lead into the making of an artwork later on. This could include researching, script-writing, location scouting, animatics, jamming, storyboarding, rehearsing, sampling, robotics, lab explorations and other forms of exploratory work that are used to examine ideas.

Duration of the project: Up to 6 months

Budget: Up to a maximum of Rs 75,000/-

Deadline: August 31, 2021

Who can send project proposals?

The programme invites proposals from practitioners working within as well as across disciplines. These could include:

  • Performing artists working in music, sound, text, dance, movement, theatre, puppetry, storytelling, magic, circus and other performance arts
  • Visual artists working across all forms including film (documentary and fiction), animation, photography, installation, new media, Artificial Intelligence, robotics, interactive arts, gaming, painting, sculpture, printmaking, comic book, graphic narrative, artist book and other visual arts
  • Curators, especially those working outside of the gallery context
  • Poets, novelists, playwrights working with literary arts
  • Practitioners engaged in interdisciplinary work

Eligibility:

You are eligible to send project proposals if you are an Indian national. Your collaborators too must be Indian nationals. For details, please click here.

How to send project proposals?

  • You can write your proposal in any Indian language including English. IFA encourages projects in Indian languages other than English
  • You can send us your queries and draft ideas in written, audio or video formats for response from IFA staff till July 31, 2021. Final proposals must reach us by August 31, 2021

Send us a proposal describing: 

  • Your existing arts practice, concerns and interests as a practitioner
  • Details of the Exploration you want to pursue and the reason why
  • Detailed timeline and budget
  • Examples of earlier work
  • Your biodata with address, phone number and email id 

Selection Process:

The shortlisted proposals will be evaluated by an external panel and applicants will be required to present their project ideas to the panel. Projects selected for implementation will be announced in October 2021. 

Proposal Submissions:

Please note, considering the current situation, we only accept applications via email.

Email your application in a single email not more than 24 MB to John Xaviers, Programme Officer, Arts Practice at john@indiaifa.org with the Subject Line: Project Proposal for Explorations (Arts Practice) 

For any queries and clarification regarding your proposal, please write to john@indiaifa.org

All selected projects will be implemented by IFA.

The Arts Practice programme is supported by Sony Pictures Entertainment Fund.