The Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation (SSAF) and Asia Art Archive (AAA) in India are pleased to announce the SSAF–AAA Research Grant for Archiving Histories of Art, Ideas, and Visual Culture 2024. This grant, which marks the sixth year of collaboration between SSAF and AAA in India, emerges from AAA’s ongoing endeavour to digitise, document, and make publicly accessible recent histories of art in the region by deploying a range of innovative archival practices and research methods. This grant is in line with SSAF’s commitment to work with cross-disciplinary initiatives that address the often difficult and sometimes endangered conditions of informal archiving, the challenges posed by the fugitive political conditions of their assembly and use, and the possible links of such materials with alternative and heterodox practices in the arts and in intellectual work.
The grant aims to:
- Encourage the use of innovative methodologies for purposes of identifying, documenting, researching, and annotating materials that have hitherto been inaccessible in the public domain and remain precarious under shifting political climates. This could result in the creation of an archive that transforms our existing understanding of the field.
- Open up research avenues into histories viewed as constituent parts of wider discursive fields, specific regional milieus, and the politics of image-making and their circulation.
- Support projects that consider both the long- and short-term outcomes of making such materials publicly available, and suggest possible strategies.
- Support creative modes of interpretation and engagement with materials that emerge from the recognition of their contextual significance.
Applicants are encouraged to suggest new connections between print cultures, intellectual histories, visual arts, and marginalised social, political, and cultural movements; lay new trails for unpacking the archival materials developed under the grant; and explain the objectives and intent of their research.
GRANT FOCUS FOR 2024
We invite proposals that interrogate how print and visual cultural materials of different kinds—journals, magazines, posters, pamphlets, books, little magazines, ephemera, etc.—contributed to, constituted, and were embedded in the cultural politics of a historical moment. Preference will be given to proposals that focus on print and visual cultural materials in regional languages that are out of circulation, and are not located in public collections, with an intent to make these materials accessible to the best extent possible and in the most meaningful and productive ways.
Areas of research may include, but are not limited to:
- Social or political movements that extended to print culture, and the visual, literary, and political histories therein.
- The intellectual contribution of artists, activists, poets, writers, editors, designers, or publishers who played an important role in the evolution of print and visual cultural materials, and the debates involved.
- The movement of ideas on art, literature, poetry, aesthetics, and cultural practices within print culture, and as they occur via translation between languages and contexts.
SELECTION PRIORITIES
- Research that aims to unearth print and visual cultural materials inaccessible through public collections, and that preferably engages with regional language materials and milieus.
- Research proposals that are interdisciplinary and deploy innovative methodologies, with clearly defined objectives and outcomes, and an outline of the relevant proposed area of research.
- Proposals feasible for completion within the given duration of the grant.
Six candidates will be shortlisted for interviews on the basis of their applications. Interviews will be conducted online in October 2024. One grantee will be selected from among those interviewed by a panel consisting of one external member, one member from SSAF, and one member from AAA in India. The selected grantee will be contacted by the end of October 2024.
APPLICATION PROCESS
Eligibility Criteria
Individuals who are Indian nationals residing in India, or collectives whose members are Indian nationals residing in India, with relevant qualifications or professional experience, and who are already engaged in such research.
Deadline for Applications
16 Sep 2024
Duration of Grant
1 Nov 2024–31 Oct 2025
Grant Amount
Up to INR 3,00,000
GRANT DELIVERABLES
Applicants are required to propose anticipated research deliverables, including but not limited to a richly annotated digitised archive or a visual essay.
Since the purpose of the grant is to make material collated during the research process publicly accessible in annotated form, grantees will be expected to define a method for their research to be made available in the public domain. This could take the form of a physical archive, website, online platform, or digital archive, among others, depending on the nature of the material, its content, and its legal status.
At the conclusion of the grant period, a sampling of materials developed through the grant may be handed over to SSAF and AAA.
GRANT PROCESS AND AFTERLIFE
Report
For administrative purposes, grantees will be required to submit one midterm report (1,500–2,000 words) and one final report (3,500–5,000 words) outlining the research process, describing key findings, listing collections and interlocutors, and declaring expenses for how the grant amount has been utilised.
Interim Presentation
Following the submission of the midterm report, AAA and SSAF will organise a closed-door interim presentation by the grantee with attending members from both organisations, and any other key persons suggested by SSAF and AAA.
Public Presentation
A public presentation of the research will be co-organised by AAA and SSAF at the conclusion of the grant period.
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS
A completed application form detailing:
- Applicant details (name, contact information, etc.)
- Project details (title and brief description of project)
- Referee details (name and contact of one referee)
- Documents to upload in a single PDF file not exceeding 30MB:
a) A two-page CV and a selection of two of your most relevant publications, or a portfolio of recent research projects. If applying as a collective, please submit a portfolio of the collective’s activities as well as CVs of at least two members.
b) A project proposal that includes:
(i) A description of the intended research with context of its relevance, an elaboration on the research methodologies used, as well as the intended form of the final outcome of this research.
(ii) Indication of sources, collections, and interlocutors the research will involve.
(iii) No more than ten images of proposed research material.
c) A tentative timeline for the project’s realisation and budget of estimated costs based on the project proposal and timeline.
Please submit the completed application form by Monday, 16 September 2024.
We encourage applicants to reach out to us at aaaigrant@aaa.org.hk prior to submitting the application to discuss any questions, clarifications, or concerns. Late submissions will not be considered.
ABOUT SSAF
Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation (SSAF) was established in 2016 with the mandate to carry forward the legacy of scholar and photographer, Umrao Singh Sher-Gil (1870–1954); his daughter and a pioneering figure of modern Indian art, Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–41); her nephew and niece, artist Vivan Sundaram and filmmaker and television journalist, Navina Sundaram.
SSAF seeks to enable conjunctions of artistic and cultural practice that deal with historical memory, and to build expectations for the future. It commits itself to advancing creative independence for art that is founded on freedom of expression, and which is secular.
ABOUT AAA IN INDIA
Asia Art Archive in India (AAA in I) is an independent registered Public Charitable Trust established in 2013 in New Delhi, with the goal of building resources for research on the region’s dynamic contemporary art scene. It accomplishes this mission by digitising artist and scholarly archives, developing research projects, and organising programmes. AAA in I’s digitised research collections can be accessed from its space in New Delhi, which has been open to the public since 2016.
Banner Image: Cover of Vrishchik (Year 4, No. 3), 1973. Gulammohammed Sheikh Archive, AAA Collections. Courtesy of Gulammohammed Sheikh.