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Call for Applications-Museum Fellowship [IFA & Munshi Aziz Bhat Museum of Central Asian and Kargil Trade Artefacts & Inlaks India Foundation.]


         
Deadline

India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) in collaboration with the Munshi Aziz Bhat Museum of Central Asian and Kargil Trade Artefacts invites applications for its Museum Fellowship, an initiative to support curators to explore innovative ways of presenting museum collections, from a contemporary context. The Fellowship will give curators the opportunity to engage with the historical collection at the ethnographic museum in Kargil, re-present the collection and experiment with different forms of visualisation and design, related to the museum/exhibition space.
Kargil used to be an important nodal centre for trade on the Silk Route in the 18th and 19th centuries and the museum has a varied collection of artifacts, mercantile items and Silk Route memorabilia. The intention of this Fellowship is to use this collection as a starting point to reflect on the complex history of the Silk Route, through constructing narratives around the objects, texts and legacies of the people who traversed these regions. The exhibition that will evolve from this Fellowship will be open to the public at the Kargil museum in August 2014.
The Museum Fellowship has been initiated with the two-fold objective of energising the museum and alternative audience spaces and providing curators with an opportunity to generate new critical and creative approaches to public engagement.
This Museum Fellowship is supported by the Inlaks India Foundation.
About the Museum
The Kargil Trade Artefacts museum located in Kargil (Ladakh), 204 kms from Srinagar, was established by the Munshi brothers, Gulzar and Ajaz, in 2004. The museum operates with the objective of preserving and promoting the rich heritage of Kargil in the context of the Silk Route. The museum’s collection includes textiles, manuscripts & books, utensils & crockery, pipes, jewellery, imported liquor price lists and horse accessories bought and sold along the Silk Route, from Turkey to China via Afghanistan in the 18th and 19th centuries.
This collection offers interesting and varied material for the curator to re-visit, re-examine, and re-present from a contemporary context. The museum also hosts a library and an archive.For more information about the background and history of the museum, please see their website, wiki page and video.
About the Fellowship
The Fellowship provides a monthly honorarium of Rs 30,000 for four months, and research and travel allowances up to Rs 60,000. Modest accommodation and a work space will also be provided by the museum for the duration of the Fellowship.
The Fellowship will be awarded for a duration of four months, commencing April 15, 2014. The exhibition will open in August, 2014.
Applicant Profile
We seek applications from curators, artists, art historians/researchers with previous curatorial experience, and with a strong interest in museums. We encourage applications from curators who can identify in the museum collection, a match between material history and storytelling.
Persons who are Indian nationals or have been a resident of India for five or more years are eligible to apply.
The deadline for receiving applications is March 10, 2014. Shortlisted candidates will be informed by March 17, 2014. Interviews are expected to take place at the end of March. The Fellowship start date is scheduled for April 15, 2014.
Application Process
Your application must include:
A letter of interest explaining how you would benefit from this Museum Fellowship. Please ensure that you identify an aspect of your curatorial practice that you are interested in further developing during the course of the Fellowship;
A brief description of the curatorial approach of a project you have been involved with in the past, either as curator or as researcher/assistant curator;
Your curriculum vitae;
Documentation of your previous curatorial work, which could include photos/ jpegs (6-8 images) with titles and date, DVD (max 4 minutes), catalogues, or reviews.
Please address any queries to suman@indiaifa.org
T:(0)80 23414681/82
Please post the required documents to IFA in an envelope marked ‘Kargil Museum Fellowship’ by March 10, 2014.
Kargil Museum Fellowship
India Foundation for the Arts
‘Apurva’, Ground Floor, No 259
4th Cross, RMV 2nd Stage, 2nd Block
Bangalore – 560 094, India