For research into the changing practices and ecology of the performance form of Tamasha across Maharashtra. Building on earlier work also supported by IFA, this project entails revisiting, after nearly fifteen years, villages in the Konkan, western and northern Maharashtra, Vidarbha and Marathwada regions to document photographically the cumulative impact of socio-political and economic forces on the art form and the lives of its performers. The outcome of this project will be photographs with field notes.
For research into the work of the Wancho Literary Mission in Arunachal Pradesh towards the development and propagation of the Wancho script. The outcome of this project will be a video of the documented material.
For working with the cultural history archive at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta (CSSSC) which contains a wide variety of visual materials from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Bengal that includes books, journals, popular paintings, prints, posters, hoardings, advertisements and commercial art productions. Afrah’s research will culminate in a series of short videos that will portray stories of resistance of women in the nineteenth century, loosely themed around ‘Women and Impudence/Cheeky Girls’.
For the creation of a production based on a Marathi script titled ‘Flat Number F-1/105’. Through active collaborations among the director, actors and the playwright, the performance seeks to address issues around identity through a reflection on the aesthetic and political perceptions of ‘colour’.
For research, collation and documentation of materials from archives related to the practice of a revolutionary poet who has been an active advocate for a separate state of Telangana. This artistic engagement will be documented through photographs, text, video, and recorded audios of political discourse, conversations and interviews.
For a film and web platform on the journey of Warkaris, the Vaishnavite pilgrims who undertake an annual expedition to Pandharpur in Maharashtra. The filmmaker seeks to document the journey and map it on a web platform, while simultaneously linking various points enroute to textual material describing the journey. This project wishes to traverse the boundary between cinema and web technology where every viewer will have a different narrative experience of the journey depending on the choices they make.
For research into the popular subculture of automatons displayed during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai. His research will lead to the production of a film exploring the mythologies around these religious displays. The film will highlight the working of the low-tech automaton industry, while allowing for a creative and fictitious depiction of the research material in the form of a film. The collected material will also result in an installation piece.
For critical reflection on the relationships between theatre, history and society through the study of modes of production and consumption of nataks in Maharashtra in the early colonial period.
For research towards production and dissemination across six tier B cities of a performance piece, tentatively titled Notes on Chai. The performance will explore the idea of the quotidian in everyday life, by combining realistic character-based pieces with abstract sounds.
For research towards a curatorial project exploring the history of early sound and sound technology through archival research and interviews, as well as artistic collaborations between the researcher and a Bombay-based curator, artists, sound recordists, sound theorists, musicians, linguists, researchers and writers whose practices contribute to an understanding of sound ecologies in India.
