Public Art Grant 2019 | Somnath Waghmare and Smita Rajmane: The Ambedkar Age Digital Bookmobile
The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art is delighted to announce that the FICA Public Art Grant 2019 is being granted to Somnath Waghmare and Smita Rajmane for their project, the Ambedkar Age Digital Bookmobile.
The FICA Public Art Grant is aimed at supporting artists interested in working in the public realm in India. It welcomes proposals for art projects with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the public domain. Through the grant, FICA aims to generate interest in public art projects in India, and mutually engage and initiate an open debate among artists, local communities and the public to look at shared environments in different ways.
This year, the Public Art Grant Jury consisted of artist and curator Anita Dube; artist Arunkumar HG; and Vidya Shivadas, Director, FICA. We received over 60 applications this year, displaying a promising diversity of engagements with themes relating to the environment and ecology, education, oral traditions and performance art.
The Ambedkar Age Digital Bookmobile proposes to harness Maharashtra’s long history of social reform, accessing 400-500 year-old traditions of song-writing, performances and poetry against caste-based exploitation and untouchability. Through these histories of anti-caste resistance, the project seeks to document and raise awareness around contemporary Dalit popular and political song-performances within the community. Oriented towards encouraging discussion and dialogue around these themes, the project will travel to a variety of public spaces including educational institutions, community halls, gardens and libraries in both urban and rural areas. Imagining the ‘digital bookmobile’ as a portable multi-media archive with the potential to navigate spaces and distances with economy, Smita and Somnath hope to catalyse new avenues of understanding and meaning around the documentation of ephemeral elements of performance, songs and poetry.
The jury was impressed by the expanse and scope of the Ambedkar Age Digital bookmobile. They greatly appreciated the portable format of the archive proposed, especially its potential to navigate spaces and distances with economy. Keeping in mind the relevance and centrality of Ambedkarite discourse today, the jury felt the proposed engagement displayed a comprehensive framework for creating and sharing knowledge on and around histories of caste and resistance, untouchability and social reform in Maharashtra.
We wish the recipients our best in carrying these projects forward!
About the Recipients:
Smita Urmila Rajmane is a public intervention artist and performer. She has completed her diploma in painting from Bharti Kala Mahavidyalaya, Pune in 2011 and MFA from Shiv Nadar University, Dadri in 2016. The major themes of Smita's work deal with societal norms that arise from class/caste and gender discrimination, communal violence, the projections of hate and the differences that pervade today’s world. Her work deals with researching, unravelling and highlighting these issues through archival installations and public performances. She was a part of ‘Contemporary visual art projects- Mid & Western Jutland, Denmark (2019), Pune Biennale curated by Zasha Colah and Luca Cerizza (2016), New Weight Biennale (2016) – The University of California, Los Angeles. She has done a performance at Kochi Student Biennale (2016), 2020 -75 Artists ‘A Future Under Construction’ (2018) at Horniman Circle, Bombay, Savdhan: THE REGIMES OF TRUTH curated by Shaunak Mahbubani( 2018). She has worked with a forum called Artists Unite, 2019. She was invited for seminars at ‘October School- International seminar’ at Shiv Nadar University 2017, Experience and Infrastructure ‘A Seminar on the Arts at CAMP’ Mumbai 2017, BEING CONTEMPORARY a bi-lingual (Marathi- English) Seminar, examining issues of Regional Centers and the Contemporary Art, NGMA, Mumbai (2015). She has curated a show for school children ‘Mokita’ - Dalit Panthers movement and archive (2019). ‘The wall of Voices – Celebration of the Constitution’ – One week interactive participatory show for school children on the occasion of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar birth anniversary (2019). Currently working as a Scenographer for a play 'Mahish' Third Space Collective, Delhi.
Somnath Waghmare is a researcher and documentary filmmaker born in Malewadi, a small village in Sangli district in Maharashtra. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Social Sciences from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, from where he also did his M.Phil. He stayed in the caste ghetto of his village for 22 years, doing his graduation in sociology at KBP College in the nearby town of Islampur. After this, he moved to Pune for his post graduate degree in Media and Communication Studies from Savitribai Phule Pune University. He worked for two years as a contract employee at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.
The core of Somnath's work is in the documentation of political and social assertion by Dalits. In both his research and films, he is interested in the caste and cultural politics of Maharashtra. He is active in the anti-caste Phule-Ambedkarite movement of the state and has also given several talks on caste in cinema, including at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute in Kolkata.
Somnath has made two documentary films, "I Am Not a Witch" (2015) and "The Battle of Bhima Koregaon: An Unending Journey" (2017). Both have been screened in several locations across India. His film on Bhima Koregaon was also screened at the University of Columbia in New York. Currently, he is working on a documentary biopic of Dr. Gail Omvedt and Dr. Bharat Patankar, a noted activist and academic couple in Maharashtra. He is also working on a video documentation of the history of Chaityabhoomi in Mumbai, the location of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar's funeral, where lakhs of people come every year to commemorate his life and ideology.
Image Courtesy: Ambedkar Age Digital Bookmobile.
Image Description: Jai Bhim Kala Manch, Amravati. Dr. B R Ambedkar Mahaparinirvan Din,
Chaitybhumi, Dadar, Mumbai.