Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Briefly with the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage

Along similar lines of Arts Management, NGOs like Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) have taken awareness, education and conservation of Indian arts and cultural heritage miles ahead. Taking care of four main domains, Architecture Heritage, Art Heritage, Natural Heritage and Intangible Heritage; INTACH has more than 150 chapters across India. INTACH also deals with the documentation of each and every detailed aspect of the Indian heritage through its chapters and has been successful in preserving several endangered languages, traditions, literature and history throughout the country. These are then revived and exposed to the society of that region through various means such as insistence on incorporating these languages in the primary education system and usage of local script of the area. The documentation also offers means to the universities to research upon these traditions for their various art courses. INTACH has also developed short term internship and research programs with universities and colleges. It also encourages schools across the country to organize heritage clubs and host workshops. Tourism circles of INTACH not only convey the facts about a tourist site, but also revive the culture and living heritage of the site. The funding for all programs by INTACH is facilitated by the MHRD, zonal cultural centres, various cultural foundations and trusts and corporate (However corporate collaborations are avoided as far as possible).

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Briefly with the India Foundation of Arts

With a vision of enriching the practice, knowledge, and public access to the arts and its experience, the India Foundation of the Arts is playing a pivotal role in providing the strategic support for innovative projects and capacity building across the arts. Through its grants to the individuals and organizations, IFA fills up gaps in private and public assistance for culture and arts in India. By providing awards, fellowships and workshops to school teachers IFA strengthens the study of arts in the education system; and through Arts Research and Documentation it supports documentation and archival initiatives in arts (necessary for revival and evolution of arts and culture over time) which were perceived to be at a lower priority at the universities. Under arts education IFA jointly with Goethe-Institute/Max Mueller Bhavan has initiated a program ‘Kali Kalisu’, which envisions a series of arts capacity building workshops for school teachers in the state of Karnataka. Having employees from various backgrounds such as cultural studies and management, IFA supports activities such as art education, art research and documentation curatorial practices, performance infrastructure and new performance through its grant programs and publishes art journals to promote the arts and reach out to the public.