Shruti Chamaria

Shruti Chamaria is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, London. Her personal practice deals with hyper-reality of spaces, objects and memories. This grant will enable her to document the abandoned cybercafes in Bangalore.

Since the arrival of the mobile internet, the use and utility of cybercafés have come into question. Many have just shut shop and other businesses have come up in their spaces. Some cybercafés, however, are still around as neglected and abandoned spaces in our surroundings. Shruti’s project titled Are Cybercafés Dead? endeavours to explore the ignored and almost invisible infrastructures of cybercafés in Bangalore. During the grant period, Shruti will produce a series of photographs of abandoned cyber hubs - the interior as well as the exterior facades located across the city.  In addition to this, Shruti will invite artists from other countries to collaborate and submit photographs of cybercafés from their locations as a symbol of cross-border exchange and shared memory. These photographs will come together in a public digital display.

The outcome of the project will be an online photo exhibition. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be photographs of the cybercafés.

This grant is made possible under the special initiative 25x25, with support from lead donor Kshirsagar-Apte Foundation, and philanthropy partners, Titan Company Limited, Priya Paul, and Sethu Vaidyanathan.