Art > AAA artist grant

Asia Art Archive in India and Inlaks India Foundation are pleased to announce the open call for AAA–Inlaks Art Grant 2022, dedicated to supporting experimental approaches to practicing art today.

Applications Closed

The aim of the grant is to encourage artists to propose and test forms of art-making that incorporate research, collaboration, workshops, and formal experiments, as a way to explore imaginations, architectures, sensoria, and interfaces of the archive while looking at existing archives.

This open call seeks proposals that demonstrate a critical and imaginative approach around the archive as concept, as systems, and as medium. The provocation to artists applying for this grant is: What shall we do with the archive?

Candidates are invited to propose projects that engage with any of the following:

  • Archives pertaining to any field: art, music, cinema, theatre, law, science, medicine, and meteorology to name a few
  • Artists’ personal archives: scrapbooks, letters, diaries, photo-albums, etc.
  • Public libraries, databases, inventories
  • Anthologies, timelines, maps, and bibliographies
  • Time travel

No outcome in the form of a finished artwork is expected for this grant. Applications will be assessed on the basis of how clearly ideas have been formulated and how rigorously they propose to be explored. Proposals with projects that are a continuation of ongoing work are eligible to apply for this grant. As mentioned above, proposals that incorporate research, collaboration, workshops, and formal experimentation will be given preference. 

Eligibility: Artists of Indian citizenship residing in India between the age of 25 to 35 years. Collectives are eligible to apply provided all members are Indian citizens and not more than 35 years in age.

Duration of Grant: One year; 1 August 2022–31 July 2023

Grant Amount: Up to Rs. 2,00,000

Deadline: Applications Closed

Selection Process: Five candidates will be shortlisted for interviews on the basis of their applications. The interviews will be conducted online in mid-July 2022; and one grantee will be selected from among those interviewed by a panel consisting of one-to-two external members, one member from Inlaks, and one member from AAA in India. The selected grantee will be contacted by 20 July 2022.

 

Applications Requirements

  1. A completed application form
  2. A two-page CV
  3. A portfolio of 3–5 of your most recent projects compiled in a single PDF file; audio-video files can be sent as links to online platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud
  4. An Artist Statement with description of your practice and areas of interest (up to 250 words)
  5. A project proposal (up to 1000 words) which should include:
    (i) a short description of the intended/ongoing project, and your research responding to any of the themes listed in this open call;

(ii) a timeline for the project’s different stages and potential platforms; and

(iii) archives/collections/individuals you intend to access/visit.

The proposal does not have to be definitive and can change during the course of the one-year period of this grant in consultation with AAA & Inlaks representatives.

  1. A budget of estimated costs for your project based on your proposal and timeline

Please send the documents specified above to both gladys@inlaksfoundation.org and artgrant@aaa.org.hk by Sunday, 19 June 2022.

We encourage applicants to reach out to us at the email addresses specified above prior to submitting the application to discuss any questions, clarifications, or concerns. Incomplete or late submissions will not be considered.

 

Recipient

2022

  • Sudha Padmaja Francis

Sudha Padmaja Francis’ project for the grant, Cook-Booking through a History of Baking in the Malabar, proposes to produce an archive around the history of culture and labour in bakeries associated with the OBC communities in northern Kerala.

Sudha is a filmmaker/visual artist from Kerala, India. She graduated with a Masters in Creative Enterprise (Film) from the University of Reading, UK in September 2017. She is a recipient of the Felix scholarship for 2016-2017. She completed her first short film in Malayalam titled Eye Test in August 2017, which was her graduation dissertation film at Reading. Eye Test won the National Film Award for Best Cinematography in 2017, and was screened at several international film festivals. Francis made a 26 minute documentary film with the help of a PSBT-Doordarshan Fellowship titled Ormajeevikal (Memory Beings) based on the subaltern musical realm in North Kerala. It was screened at various international film festivals and was shortlisted for the Toto Funds the Arts Award 2020. She completed a documentary on weaving cooperative societies in Kerala with the Sahapedia Early Career Filmmaking Grant she had secured in 2020. Her video series on life during the pandemic and lockdown was shown at various places including the Argentinian Bienale ‘Bienal Sur’. Her recent video essay Walkway was shown at the Oberhausen Film Festival 2022.

 

2020

  • Avik Debdas

Avik Debdas’s project for the grant, The Taste of Bitter Time, proposed to undertake a creative investigation of the genealogies of Tis Hazari, a locality in Old Delhi.

 

2017

  • Sharmistha Saha

Sharmistha Saha’s project for the grant, Act… Now Re-enact!, engaged with late nineteenth century and early twentieth century archives of Bengali and Marathi theatre.

 

Website: http://www.aaa.org.hk/en

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