For research on the evolution of the Indian documentary film. Focusing on major figures and phases of development from the 1920s to the present, the project will chart the chronologies of different types of documentary filmmaking practices in India. The connection of technology, politics, community building, funding and censorship to documentary filmmaking will also be investigated. The outcome of the project will be the manuscript of a book and two paper presentations at seminars.
For the study of the relationship between digital technology and the folk art forms, especially the resistance arts, which draw on the Bundeli tradition of the Narmada Valley region of Madhya Pradesh. The research will map the transformation in these folk art forms with the advent of technology, leading to the creation of ‘digital folk arts’. The research findings will be documented in a DVD and will be uploaded on the Jatan Trust website.
For research and documentation of the Bhagait folk ballad tradition, popular among marginalised and Dalit castes from the Indo- Nepal region bordering Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The project will investigate the additions, deletions and reinventions in this art form. The research will lead to two critical essays and audio-visual materials, which will be archived at the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad, and other print materials such as posters, pamphlets and articles, which will be uploaded on the Institute’s website.
For research leading to a monograph on the comic strip Cheriya Manushyarum, Valiya Lokavum (Small Men and the Big World) created by G.Aravindan, the internationally acclaimed film maker, which appeared in a Malayalam literary weekly from 1961 to 1973. Video interviews with cartoonists, scholars, family members, historians and readers and a bibliography of critical texts, essays and books on comics and graphic novels will be archived on the website of the Centre for Performance Research and Cultural Studies in South Asia.
For research into the work of artists Angelo Da Fonseca, whose paintings gave Christian art an Indian face in Portuguese Goa of the late colonial period. The research will trace the trajectory of Fonseca’s work in relation to the formation of the complex national identities within small enclaves like Goa. The research will lead to a monograph, the publication of two critical essays and an inventory of all of Fonseca works that exist outside the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa.
For research towards a book on the history and evolution of the little magazine movement from 1881 to 2010. The book will investigate the role of women writers, publishers, sponsors and critics in the little magazine movement, and the correlation between literature, social change and other art forms like painting, cinema and theatre. Digital copies of significant little magazines from 1960 to 1975 (a time of radical literary invention through the little magazines) will be distributed to university libraries and institutions across Maharashtra.
For a three-day international conference titled Archiving Art Histories: Exigencies and Challenges in Pedagogy and Research. The conference will survey the history of archiving, research and teaching practices of art history in Indian art schools. The conference will think through and devise ways of improving the present state of visual archives in art teaching institutions in the country.
For research on the socio-political history of modern Marathi theatre. The researcher will focus on the different political trends in Marathi theatre from the time of the first modern playwrights in Marathi to the present. The resulting manuscript will serve as a source for three plays that will bring political history of modern Marathi theatre to a larger theatre-going audience.
For researching and photo-documenting the tambu talkies (tent cinemas) that follow the route of the religious jatras (fairs) in Maharashtra. The history of the tambu talkies will be constructed by mapping the film distribution cycle and exhibition patterns, gathering old photographs and documents, and recording oral histories of the proprietors and distributors of the tambu talkies. Photo-documentation will capture the current state of the touring tent cinemas, covering such aspects as the audience profile, the ingenious projection systems and the innovative advertising strategies.
For research into indigenous children’s literature in the nineteenth century Bengal that burgeoned in opposition to the British education system and reclaimed displaced popular culture to establish an important swadeshi tradition. The research will culminate in an encyclopaedia and a website on indigenous children’s literature in the nineteenth century Bengal.
