neekoee foundation

CALL FOR ARTISTS

Neekoee Foundation Art Fellowships 2021

Neekoee Foundation extends its commitment towards the cause of supporting artists and their work in the second year of these unprecedented times. As we yet grapple with the pandemic, the uncertainty, fear, grief, loss and isolation, we are delighted to announce Art fellowships, in collaboration with Smithsonian Folklife Festival, for the young artists in the field of visual and performing arts. The intention is to galvanize artistic action and help sustain art practices through these difficult times.

The art fellowships are a step in the direction of thinking about the many ways in which change could take us. Can we imagine alternative communities, collaborations, and solidarities emerging out of our current predicament? Can we point towards new systems for disseminating works of art? Can we produce artistic approaches which adapt to the new reality, or help to shape it? Can we resume art practice under these extraordinary pressures, and if yes, how? These art fellowships are an opportunity to navigate the new normal and find different, out of the box experiments for the young artist and discover new experiences for the audience as well.

Proposals for new projects are invited from artists working in the medium of painting, sculpture, theatre, video, photography, sound, performance, software/code, dance, public sites, internet, writers or any other. Proposals might take the form of social practice, collaborative performance, interactive art, artist-led production, or creative processes. Proposals may be anchored in strong research, or may explore cross-disciplinary practices. The fellowships are open to established and emerging definitions of art practice.

A jury of eminent people will select the awardees. The final grantees will be mentored by –

Sharmila Samant (Visual Artist | Faculty, Dept. Art, Design and Performance, Shiv Nadar University)
Amitesh Grover (Performance-based Artist & Curator | Faculty, National School of Drama)

Eligibility:

Age Group : up to 35 years
Not currently enrolled in any University/College/Institution
Indian citizen or living in India for the last two years

Grant details:

Total fellowship Amount : INR 1.5 lakhs
Duration : 6 – 9 months
The projects must culminate in a final showing. The nature that the showing may take will be in discussion with the mentors.

How To Apply

Write to us at neekoee2019@gmail.com with the following –

Subject line- Neekoee Artist Fellowship – 2021
Proposal (500 words max.)
Artist Statement (300 words max)
Updated CV and Portfolio, 20 MB max (PDF format, as an attachment & video provide Vimeo, YouTube links only)
Last date for submission September 30, 2021
Applications which are not in the above format will not be accepted.

Neena Naishadh Endeavour

Changing minds through Arts!

The Foundation strongly believes that art has several intrinsic benefits that enrich our emotions, stimulate our minds. Individuals and communities cherish arts and culture for these benefits. However, art also has an impact on social cohesion, education, local economies, health and wellbeing. By bringing thought provoking productions, delivering top quality workshops, supporting local artists and providing a platform to community members and students to engage with artists of international repute they aim to widen the reach of art and culture across social, economic and cultural divides in the society. The explicit charter of the Foundation is to bring these benefits for the improvement of the individual and the society by bridging communities and cultures of the region, country and the world.

Neekoee Artist Fellowship Programme

IMPACT REPORT (2019-2020)

With the onset of the pandemic, the Foundation floated two artist grants in the year 2020. The thought was to support young artists in the times of this unprecedented situation, and ignite new thoughts in the young minds to create work, as well as, disseminate art, and expand the audiences, in the new normal. Collaborative performance, interactive art, social practices were the key aspects that the Foundation looked for. We got an overwhelming response, with 350 applications from urban, non urban areas across India. This was a reflection of the fact that there was a paucity of support in the country, and pushed the Foundation to announce one more grant. With the help of external jury members three artists were selected.

Key points of our selection of these three projects were:

Ajmal Shifaz- Project: Echo of Nothing

1. a well rounded and thoughtful proposal
2. Engaging the community, children and the metal workers in creating the mobile sculpture allows co-authorship and agency that can be an important component of socially engaged art practice.
3. The ability to engage with the aftermath of the carnage and the creation of the mobile sculpture for public intervention has the potential to generate a meta-communication by involving the audience to engage with the horror of loss and trauma.
4. sculpture for public intervention has the potential to generate a meta-communication
5. The intervention of the given mobile sculpture around the city gives a clear sense of the audience, herein, people in the city.

Dhwani Vij- Of what Remains

1. 1. Proposal critically engages with ideas of state and nationhood through questioning the basic understanding of it.
  2. Subject wise the project’s proposal to use history, with text as a base to reach towards an imagination of the future of the nation is quite appealing
  3. Both form (object theatre) and site (museum) in the proposed project are interesting and bring in the interdisciplinary nature to the project.

Sumantra Sardar- Toxic Fashion

1. The artist’s engagement with the context of the given community is intimate yet speaks to larger social contexts of the living conditions of small, medium or large scale industry labour.
2. the research based ongoing engagement of the artist within the community and

how the artist is using art as a pedagogical tool.

The involvement of the community members in collectively investigating their own living situation and possibly trying to find solutions to some of the adversities
The research data and the outcomes can have extended life through an archive publication or any other forms of dissemination for larger public access.
1. Overall, the possibilities of affecting change in the living conditions/ lives of the given community in the project.
2. The project is not a one of, but has the potential of a long meaningful intervention.

All three grantees were mentored by artist pedagouges- Sharmila Samant and Amitesh Grover for 6-9 months, discussing, and pushing thoughts to thinking beyond. Both the projects were based in a community and hence, needed a rapport building exercise. This was carefully built to gain confidence to work freely with them. The children and young adults in Delhi, engaged in drawing, painting and making objects with the charred remains of the pogrom that the place had witnessed in early 2020, imagination took over and they created a ‘merry go round’. There was an attempt at healing the memory of violence with creative play by Ajmal Shifaz.

The community in, West Bengal having experienced the rapid deterioration of the water bodies in their immediate surroundings, realised the exploitation of the resources and is supportive of the project. They renewed their zeal and vigour to take up the cause. Power balance, discrimination, collective consciousness, over consumption, man – nature balance, toxicity, silent change are words and meanings that takes shape out of this project. This is an ongoing project; as Sumantra hails from the neighbourhood and feels that he has just touched the tip of the matter!

This is the first year of the grants, and every year would be a learning year, also the projects selected will have the propensity of longer engagements and would take time to show the impact on the audience/community.

The experience with the first year grantees has made us aware and so going forward it has been decided to streamline the selection process and make it more robust by adding one more step of interviewing the short listed candidates; this may lead to a better assessment and understanding of the project and the way the artist proposes to engage with the community as well as enrich and diversify their working methodologies.

Neekoee Artist Fellowship Programme

Performing Arts

Visual Arts

Culture

Conversations

Neekoee Artist Fellowship Programme

IMPACT REPORT (2019-2020)

Key points of our selection of these three projects were:

Ajmal Shifaz- Project: Echo of Nothing

1. a well rounded and thoughtful proposal
2. Engaging the community, children and the metal workers in creating the mobile sculpture allows co-authorship and agency that can be an important component of socially engaged art practice.
3. The ability to engage with the aftermath of the carnage and the creation of the mobile sculpture for public intervention has the potential to generate a meta-communication by involving the audience to engage with the horror of loss and trauma.
4. sculpture for public intervention has the potential to generate a meta-communication
5. The intervention of the given mobile sculpture around the city gives a clear sense of the audience, herein, people in the city.

Dhwani Vij- Of what Remains

1. 1. Proposal critically engages with ideas of state and nationhood through questioning the basic understanding of it.
  2. Subject wise the project’s proposal to use history, with text as a base to reach towards an imagination of the future of the nation is quite appealing
  3. Both form (object theatre) and site (museum) in the proposed project are interesting and bring in the interdisciplinary nature to the project.

Sumantra Sardar- Toxic Fashion

1. The artist’s engagement with the context of the given community is intimate yet speaks to larger social contexts of the living conditions of small, medium or large scale industry labour.
2. the research based ongoing engagement of the artist within the community and

how the artist is using art as a pedagogical tool.

The involvement of the community members in collectively investigating their own living situation and possibly trying to find solutions to some of the adversities
The research data and the outcomes can have extended life through an archive publication or any other forms of dissemination for larger public access.
1. Overall, the possibilities of affecting change in the living conditions/ lives of the given community in the project.
2. The project is not a one of, but has the potential of a long meaningful intervention.