songs-of-freedom

Songs of Freedom: Biswa Adibasi Dibas (International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples) in South Odisha

Randall Sequeira Oct 25, 2026

Randall Sequeira documents the observance of International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2026 in Rayagada, Odisha, where Dalit, Adivasi and other Indigenous communities gathered alongside Maa Mati Mali Surakhya Mancha (MMMSM) to defend their ancestral lands from encroachment, holding space for resistance and solidarity.

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on-insistent-resistance
events

On Insistent Resistance: Baaraan Ijlal’s The Hour of Shadows

Afreen Akhtar Oct 24, 2026

Afreen Akhtar examines Baaraan Ijlal’s The Hour of Shadows (2026), a series of paintings recently displayed at Shrine Empire Gallery, which, inspired by Baaraan’s father’s poetry, traces how the works confront architectures of exclusion through the figure of resistance, Zagh, a crow-woman carrying a megaphone.
bride-kidnapping-in-nar
events

Bride Kidnapping in Nar: Lhakpa Choedon Lama’s Home is Not a Place 

Alfa M. Shakya Oct 20, 2026

Alfa M. Shakya examines Lhakpa Choedon Lama’s Home is Not a Place (2026), a documentary tracing the practice of bride kidnapping in Nar in western Nepal. Following Choedon Lama’s encounters with women across generations, she considers how the film confronts violence sustained in the name of tradition while attending to the possibilities of resistance by women within the community.
mahasweta-devi-the-work-of-witnessing
stories

Mahasweta Devi: The Work of Witnessing

Editorial Oct 17, 2026

On Saturday, 15 August 2026, ASAP | art brought together Tathagata Bhattacharya, Sohini Chattopadhyay and Joshy Joseph for a panel discussion titled Mahasweta Devi: The Work of Witnessing, moderated by Shamya Dasgupta. Marking Mahasweta Devi’s birth centenary and seventy-nine years of India’s independence, the conversation approached her inimitable legacy from multiple vantage points.

on-vriti-or-ancestral-legacy
albums

On Vriti, or Ancestral Legacy: The Vanishing Pata Textile Tradition of Kotpad and Bastar

Pankaja Sethi Oct 14, 2026

Pankaja Sethi traces the vanishing Pata textile tradition of Kotpad and Bastar through photographs, oral narratives and the memories of community elders, considering the image as an open archive for recovering forgotten textile forms and carrying forward the ancestral knowledge of Adivasi and Dalit weaver communities.
zahara-batool-s-invisible-threads
events

Zahara Batool’s Invisible Threads: Weaving, Belonging and  Women’s Labour in Kargil

Kristi Kar Oct 12, 2026

Kristi Kar reflects on Zahara Batool’s Invisible Threads (2026), presented at the sā Ladakh Biennale, looking at women’s collective labour, traditional weaving and cultural memory in Hunderman, Kargil.

WATCHLIST

Film Heritage Foundation, in collaboration with Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia in Bologna and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Mumbai, invites submissions of home movies shot on 8mm, Super 8mm or 9.5mm film for The 8mm Festival – Life in Small Frames. Taking place on 18–19 December 2026 at The K. R. Cama Oriental Institute and Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai, the festival-cum-workshop will bring together 20 participants for two days of hands-on sessions on film preservation, care and projection. Films screened by the participants must be under 20 minutes in length. Participation is free; selected participants must attend all sessions and bear the costs of travel, accommodation and film shipment. Apply by 15 November 2026

WATCHLIST

The Delton Cables Inception Grant for Photography supports one emerging South Asian photographer with a year of structured support, including a ₹2 lakh cash grant, statement development, career support and a solo exhibition at Art Incept, India. Applicants must be aged 21–40, based in or connected to South Asia, and developing a sustained photographic practice without formal commercial gallery representation. Apply by 15 November 2026

WATCHLIST

Rough Edges and the Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation invite proposals for three mentored documentary film fellowships exploring the intersections of gender and language. The call encourages feminist enquiries and experimental approaches to the ways language shapes, regulates and transforms lived experience. Open to Indian women, non-binary, trans and queer visual artists residing in India, the fellowships support documentary projects with budgets of up to ₹3,00,000. Projects should be in their early stages of development. Apply by 15 November 2026.

WATCHLIST

The Humsafar Trust invites trans and gender-diverse writers, researchers, students, activists and community members based in India to submit original articles on transgender and gender-diverse communities, including their rights, culture, health, history, arts and lived experiences. Both narrative and research-based submissions are welcome, with selected authors receiving an honorarium of ₹3,000 per published article. Applications on a rolling basis.

WATCHLIST

The Inlaks–Asia Art Archive Art Grant invites artists to develop research-led projects that approach the archive as a concept, system or medium. Proposals may engage with institutional or personal archives, public libraries, databases, anthologies, maps and other forms of archival material, incorporating research, collaboration and formal experimentation. The one-year grant offers support of up to ₹2,00,000. Applicants must be Indian citizens residing in India. Apply by 30 November 2026.

WATCHLIST

The Vital Impacts Environmental Photography Fellowships and Mentorships invite applications from photographers and visual storytellers documenting environmental and conservation issues within their own communities. The 2027 programme offers one $20,000 fellowship, six $5,000 fellowships and mentorship opportunities for ten emerging photographers, with fellows receiving support to develop and share their projects over 12 months. Apply by 30 November 2026.

WATCHLIST

The Contrapuntal invites creative non-fiction, analytical essays, narrative writing and visual work exploring disappearance beyond physical absence. The call seeks critical and creative engagements with erasure, state violence, memory, political care, ecological destruction, technological disinformation and resistance, with particular interest in the ways everyday experiences intersect with structural forces of militarism, capitalism, imperialism and fascism. Commissions include reportage, visual essays, analytical op-eds and artistic features. Apply by 1 December 2026.

WATCHLIST

Sharjah Art Foundation invites applications for its two-year Collection Research Fellowship, supporting sustained research into the Foundation’s collection and archives. The first cycle focuses on Hassan Sharif’s studio and archive, comprising artworks, objects and documents related to his practice, networks and socio-cultural contexts. Fellows will work with the Collection and Learning and Research teams, drawing on the Foundation’s wider holdings to develop independent research projects and contribute to the Collection’s documentation and interpretation. Apply by 30 November 2026.
abhishek-khedekar-s-tamasha
events

Abhishek Khedekar’s Tamasha: Migratory Lives and Marathi Folk Theatre 

Sucheta Chakraborty Oct 03, 2026

Sucheta Chakraborty examines Abhishek Khedekar’s photographs of Maharashtra’s travelling Tamasha troupes, tracing the caste, labour and migratory conditions that shape this tradition of folk theatre. Looking beyond the performance itself, she attends to the objects, bodies and material processes that sustain the form, while considering how Khedekar’s layered images register the histories and contemporary realities of Tamasha.
murga-ladai
albums

Murga Ladai: Cockfighting in Bastar Bazaars

Sakhi Subramaniam Chowla Oct 01, 2026

In this album, Sakhi Subramaniam Chowla photographs Murga Ladai, the cockfighting tradition held alongside the weekly haat in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. Looking at the sport as a social and cultural gathering, she considers the relationships between pride, competition and community, attending to the tensions between this Adivasi tradition and contemporary debates around animal cruelty.
the-weight-of-the-river
events

The Weight of the River: Jafar Muhammad’s Pankauri

Adil Manzoor Sep 29, 2026

Adil Manzoor examines Jafar Muhammad’s Pankauri (2025), a film that follows a pebble-collecting community living along the parched Karatoa River in northern Bangladesh. Through the life and labour of its protagonist, Mujibur Rahman, he looks at how ecological degradation and economic precarity become intertwined, asking what keeps a community tied to an increasingly unforgiving landscape.
beyond-the-factory
stories

Beyond the Factory: Industrial Imagery and the Noida Workers’ Strike

Tanya M Sep 26, 2026

In the second part of her essay, Tanya M places images of Noida’s industrial landscape alongside photographs of the April 2026 workers’ strike, examining how labour is made visible across different visual regimes. Drawing on Allan Sekula’s ideas of “instrumental realism” and the “shock of montage,” she considers what these contradictory images of order and disruption reveal about the structural conditions shaping workers’ lives.

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strike-turns-violent
stories

“Strike Turns Violent”: Workers’ Protests in Noida

Tanya M Sep 25, 2026

In the first of a two-part essay, Tanya M examines the images through which the April 2026 workers’ strike in Noida were framed as having “turned violent." Drawing on Allan Sekula’s writing on photography, labour and capital, she situates these images within the city’s wider visual regime of development, asking what forms of structural violence remain outside the frame.
labour-loopholes
events

Labour Loopholes: Debarun Dutta on South Asian (over)presence in Germany’s Gig Economy

Upasana Das Sep 23, 2026

In the second part of this edited conversation, Upasana Das speaks with filmmaker and policy researcher Debarun Dutta about the possibilities of organising within Germany’s gig economy, looking at the role of unions, legal action and policy reform in challenging subcontractors and algorithmic exploitation faced by South Asian migrant workers.
on-exploitation-in-the-delivery-guy
events

On Exploitation in The Delivery Guy: In Conversation with Debarun Dutta

Upasana Das Sep 22, 2026

In the first part of this edited conversation, Upasana Das speaks with filmmaker and policy researcher Debarun Dutta about his short documentary, The Delivery Guy (2025), tracing the precarious lives of South Asian students and migrant workers caught between education, migration and gig labour in Germany.
the-postal-portfolios
stories

The Postal Portfolios: A Little History of Photography in Early Twentieth-Century India

Sreerupa Bhattacharya Sep 19, 2026

Tracing the postal photography circles of 1940s India, Sreerupa Bhattacharya explores how circulating portfolios created new forms of exchange, critique and pedagogy among amateur photographers. Through the work of Debalina Mazumder and Manobina Roy, she considers how these networks helped shape the technical vocabulary through which photography was judged, debated and interpreted.
parallel-visions
stories

Parallel Visions: Omar Ahmed on the Politics of Film Curation

Ankan Kazi Sep 17, 2026

In the second part of this conversation, Ankan Kazi speaks with film curator and scholar Omar Ahmed about the connections of Indian Parallel Cinema with Third Cinema and African decolonising cinema. Ahmed reflects on the political possibilities of looking beyond established canons and discusses the challenges of curating and programming Indian independent cinema abroad—from rights and access to the persistent expectations that shape how Indian cinema is encountered by Western audiences.
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