After our six-month virtual stint back in 2020, the FICA Reading Group is pleased to be re-convening in person at the Reading Room! Inviting applications from readers interested in thinking about the nature and possibilities of the political cartoon today, this session of the Reading Group will look at how and why cartoons matter—as critical mediums of news and information, as sources of historical and political knowledge—and how a sense of humor (or a lack thereof) can come with the added price of considering one’s own modernity.

Political cartoons create an intersection of time and place; as informal, peripheral records of historically significant moments, they become key points of materiality themselves. How do we read them? How do we assert their relevance, if at all so? What are the kinds of audiences we can imagine for political cartoons? How do we “appreciate” them— how do we think about insight and affect with regard to the visual narrative  and their role as forms of public communication? 

With this session of the FICA Reading Group, we are keen to invite readers to consider these questions, their implications and to think alongside the archive of cartoons currently on display at Project_Space at the FICA Reading Room.

Date: Saturday, 18 June 2022
Timing: 10:30 AM - 1.30 PM 
Venue: FICA Reading Room, F 213/E 2, Second Floor, Old Mehrauli Badarpur  Road, Lado Sarai, New Delhi 110030 

Last date for applications: 14 June 2022

The Wry Eye is an ongoing display showcasing an archive of cartoons by Inder Bhan Madan, an engineer who worked for the Post and Telegraph Department. His cartoons, determinedly drawn over four decades as a personal, diaristic lens into the world around him, brings together a very unique perspective into the mid-20th century world. Numbering over 17000, the cartoons are a record of his strikingly humorous and critical observations from different time periods in his life. 

Focusing on Phase 1 of the archive of cartoons by Inder Bhan Madan, the Reading Group session will look at how his diaristic lens over the years offers us a unique perspective into the nature of political commentary taking shape through his cartoons. Using reading as a mode of activation and assembly, we wish to be able to look at Madan’s rendition of the political caricature through several of its dimensions, looking at how these cartoons supplement a social experience of his—and our—contemporary moment. 

Please note the session will be limited to 10 participants only. 

Readings will be provided beforehand. 

Application requirements:

  • Send us a glimpse of your practice - samples of your writing, your art and/or any other related pursuits - that might demonstrate your interest in this Reading Group and in the archive. 

  • Please write to us at info@ficart.org with a very short introduction of yourself, along with samples of your work as mentioned above by 10 June 2022. 

Eligibility:

All are welcome to apply. There are no prerequisites for applying to participate in the workshop.