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A project to record and document Folk Art and Craft in the villages of Chandigarh

At the time I received the award, I had already crossed the first phase of my career. Looking for some encouragement or motivation to start afresh. At an individual level the award provided a psychological boost allowing me to work with a new zeal. The research that I carried out has had both an impact on my career and professional inclination. Earlier I was a self-centered artist pursuing my own creative urges. However this project has opened new vistas and changed my perspective towards the utility of art.

To study the mat and silk weaving traditions of Pattamadai village and Kanchipuram town in Tamil Nadu

I would like to thank the Trustees for their timely and generous awards. In the year following my Cambridge M Phil I returned to India  and was given a second grant to conduct ethnographic research among weaving communities. This work formed  a pre-PhD pilot study and I returned to Cambridge in 1996 to commence work on my PhD entitled  "Crafting discourse: mat weaving in Pattamadai, South India". I was awarded the PhD in 2002.

A study of the traditional bead-making industry of Periya district of Tamil Nadu

The grant served as seed money to carry out the preliminary studies which helped to take up the major work in the selected field. For instance the feasibility study helped to get major research project funding from the Indian National Science Academy.

Indian studio pottery movement

I work as a practising ceramic artist in New Delhi and Pondicherry. I began my research projects as self-initiated ones, because as a part time visiting faculty at the TVB School of Habitat Studies, IIT Design Centre, Bombay, and the MS University Baroda, I realised the lack of any scholarship in the area of ceramics by art historians. I wanated to teach about the Indian historical engagement with ceramics, seeing myself at the present end of a long line of makers.

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