Futures in Formation: A Public Art Programme
A platform supporting Indian artists and collectives creating with
and within communities, publics, and environments
The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) and Serendipity Arts Foundation (SAF) present Futures in Formation: A Public Art Programme, supporting 3–5 Indian artists or collectives each year with up to ₹3 lakh per project. The programme fosters critical dialogues, imaginative collaborations, and expanded notions of the public realm through research, production, and dissemination. Running from 1 May 2025 to 1 March 2026, it invites proposals engaging diverse publics, communities, and environments across India.
For the inaugural edition, the jury consisted of researcher Noopur Desai, artist Mithu Sen, urbanist, educator, and researcher Prasad Shetty, and Vidya Shivadas, director at FICA.
We received over 120 applications this year, reflecting diverse approaches to publics and public art, and highlighting the possibilities of creative engagement in the public domain. The jury was inspired by the breadth of collaborative imaginations in circulation, paying close attention to the care, empathy, and criticality shaping proposed outcomes, and to how artistic gestures were framed as interventions and dialogues with evolving notions of the public.
The 2025 Futures in Formation cohort brings together proposals from across India, engaging with ecology and conservation, gender and caste identities, ways of belonging, and traditional knowledge systems and the labour sustaining them. FICA and SAF look forward to the connections, gatherings, and rich possibilities that will unfold through the year.
The Recipients
Gyanwant Yadav and Umesh S
Presenting a research-led, community-focused initiative along the Yamuna floodplains in Delhi, Gyanwant and Umesh seek to highlight the severe pollution and ecological neglect faced by the river. Migrant farmers, primarily from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, cultivate the nutrient-rich floodplain soil without formal land rights, and face constant threats of eviction, along with other ecological issues. Taking off from their own preoccupations with the agrarian as a site of enquiry, the artists intend to address these challenges by immersing themselves in the habitat of the Yamuna. They will work to construct a multifunctional, public engagement structure to serve as a shelter, archive, and sanctuary, streamlining its possibilities as a space for gathering, recreation and awareness building on indigenous agricultural practices and sustainable living. By living and working alongside the community, the project will document environmental changes, promote ecological resilience, and advocate for the rights and recognition of informal farmers through a blend of research, art, and activism
About the recipients:
Gyanwant Yadav is a visual artist based in New Delhi. He holds a BFA and MFA from the College of Art, Delhi University. His multidisciplinary practice explores ecological transitions, rural-urban dynamics, and socio-political issues through installations, performance, and mixed media. He has exhibited widely at Birla Academy, Emami Art, and has received the Inlaks Fine Art Award (2023), Experimentor Generator 2024, and Hyundai Art for Hope Grant (2025).
Umesh S is a Varanasi-based visual artist exploring agrarian metaphors and social hierarchies rooted in his rural upbringing. With a BFA from Banaras Hindu University and MFA from the University of Hyderabad, his work reflects on land, labor, caste, and environment. He has participated in residencies including Khoj Peers and Arthshila X Khoj, and exhibited at India Art Fair 2025, Serendipity Festival, and more. His accolades include the Tata Trust International Award in the Students Biennale 2019.
Pooja Dhingra, Achal Dodia and Hariom Srivastav
Rooted in Rafooghar / گھر or The House That Mends—a community space in New Delhi—Meethi Baradari foregrounds a uniquely important pairing and form of dialogue: women who mend, and young boys from Shaheen Bagh, Madanpur Khadar, and Jasola who are learning to listen, stitch, and reflect. Rafooghar draws from the word Rafoogar/ Rafu Gar, needle-worker, darner or a cloth mender and is imagined as a space for peaceful gathering. Rafooghar is part of a broader initiative, called Compassion Contagion, an online archive documenting acts of compassion and hope through art and graphic narratives.
By listening to women’s stories, reflecting on their own identities and relationships, and engaging with the mediums of embroidery and textiles—traditionally associated with women—the project hopes will be able to express freely, question gender stereotypes, break down rigid gender barriers, and pave the way for new dialogues and partnerships based on mutual respect and understanding. Meethi Baradari is inspired by Hariom’s story and courage.
About the recipients:
Hariom Srivastav is a young boy at Rafooghar who loves to stitch, and continues to bravely challenge the societal pressures of masculinity. Achal Dodia is an artist, educator, and facilitator whose multidisciplinary practice explores the complexities of gender, masculinity, and sexuality through narrative and on-ground engagement. Pooja Dhingra is a conceptualiser, graphic designer, and founder of Compassion Contagion, an online archive that uses art to document stories of care, shifting narratives from despair to hope.
Sarika Goswami
Positioning a gentle lens into shifting landscapes and fragile ecologies in Chattisgarh, Sarika’s project, Edge of the Forest, seeks to document endangered species, sacred trees, and traditional ecological knowledge through collaborative research, observation, and ongoing dialogue with local communities. Invoking different forms of public engagement, the project is an attempt to rebuild conversations around ecological consciousness as a counter to ongoing extractive logics in the state. Drawing on indigenous techniques such as lipai, craft-making sessions around Hathona and Bahiri knotting as well as film screenings and art workshops, Sarika intends to convene with communities around site-specific engagements to create visual testaments that weave together memory and oral narratives to serve as both archive and expression, commemorating remembered relationships with the forest. These acts of collective making and storytelling become quiet forms of resistance and reclamation—foregrounding continuity, care, and alternate futures shaped by the knowledge of those who live closest to the land.
About the recipient:
Sarika Goswami is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores the transformation of landscapes through an anthropological and community-based lens. A postgraduate in Fine Arts from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, she is currently based between Chhattisgarh and Odisha. Her work has been featured in exhibitions and residencies including Utsha Residency, Bhubaneswar (2025) and a curated show at Conflictorium, Raipur (2025). She is a recipient of the Prafulla Dhanukar Award (2024), the Art for Hope Grant (2023), and the Lalit Kala Akademi Award (2021–22).
Subham Sahu
Sound from the Ground (The Vocals of My Land) is a project rooted in the cultural identity of western Odisha, a region deeply shaped by indigenous knowledge systems and sustainable ways of life. Subham aims to reintroduce and celebrate the region’s rich musical and cultural heritage for the younger generation, while honouring the knowledge and traditions of the older one.
The project proposes the creation of an archive space—a living repository that brings together photographs, audio-visual materials, folk instruments, small sculptures, maquettes, and drawings. This archive will document and preserve the indigenous musical traditions of Subham’s native region, based on over a decade of collection and engagement from 2010 to 2025. By inviting local folk musicians to perform and use the instruments from his collection, Subham envisions the space as one of active participation and intergenerational dialogue. As both tribute and bridge between traditions and time, the project seeks to inspire younger artists and audiences to engage with their cultural roots, encouraging new creative explorations in music and art that are grounded in local tradition.
About the recipient:
Subham hails from the western part of Odisha. He completed his Master’s degree in Sculpture from M.S. University of Baroda, Gujarat, in 2023, and his Bachelor’s degree from KCAC, Sundargarh, Odisha, in 2021. His visual practice explores the relationship between self and cultural environment, aiming to rephrase the regional histories of his native place through natural forms, sounds, archives, and found objects. He has participated in several exhibitions and residencies, including Khoj and Arthashila Residency, Bihar (2025); Shores of Serenity – Chilika Residency by Dot Line Space, Mumbai (2024); Kochi Student Biennale (2022–23); Art for Hope Grant (2024–25); and the Lalit Kala Akademi National Research Grant (2022–23).
Wenceslaus Mendes
Goa Water Stories 2.0 {‘Hydro-Aqua Futurism’} is an artistic and immersive learning framework for an interdisciplinary cohort, spanning six months through a blend of classroom and site-specific interventions. The programme explores water in Goa through a mapping of spaces, communities, conservation practices, and mythologies, fostering a critical understanding of its ecological and cultural significance. Fieldwork, as imagined within the scope of this project, identifies current environmental crises, community needs, and systemic gaps. Through a non-extractive, play and exploratory process, participants co-create tangible outcomes – both individually and collectively, encouraging holistic problem-solving and the articulation of syncretic, speculative futures in response to ecological challenges. Rooted in solar punk-inspired ecological post-humanism, the initiative aims to build narratives, actions, and objects of resilience, grounded in praxis, culminating in the emergence of a speculative ‘Hydro-Aqua Futurism’ centred on water, ecology, sustainability, and inclusive futures.
About the recipient:
Wenceslaus Mendes is a filmmaker, artist, and independent researcher working across multimedia as a cinematographer and editor. His practice is rooted in indigenous communities, exploring land, water, sustainability, and climate change through documentation of oral cultures and ethno-technologies. He engages with the politics of food, consumption, and knowledge through sensory experiences. His research intersects race and caste in India, examining discrimination, segregation, labour, and the Indian prison system. For him, indigenous and local knowledge are critical to inclusive, sustainable futures. His collaborative method—co-labour-abling—builds work in conversation with communities, ecosystems, and the environments from which it emerges.
About Serendipity Arts Foundation (SAF)
Serendipity Arts Foundation is an organization that facilitates pluralistic cultural expressions, sparking conversations around the arts across the South Asian region. Committed to innovation and creativity, the aim of the Foundation is to support practice and research in the arts, as well as to promote sustainability and education in the field through a range of cultural and collaborative initiatives. The Foundation hosts projects through the year, which include institutional partnerships with artists and art organizations, educational initiatives, grants and outreach programmes across India.