LIST OF SELF-ORGANIZED
INITIATIVES
LIST OF SELF-ORGANIZED
INITIATIVES
This page is dedicated to the research process of creating a database of artist-led, independent, and self-organized initiatives in India. We like to call it a ‘List/s’.
When we initiated this research and publication platform, it was overwhelming not to find enough resources and writings on self-organized initiatives in the arts. Several transdisciplinary collaborations have fallen through the cracks of time for reasons like short-lived ideas, financial instabilities, and temporary spaces, remaining a footnote in the annals of academia and bibliographies. Today, many independent initiatives’ archives are lost; their histories are fragmented, and to be pieced together through available archives, oral narratives, and public memories. Thus, the first instinct was to make a list of what is known, and what can be sourced from existing scholarships — writings in magazines, books, online platforms, newspapers, and individual archives and memories. Apart from this, we reached out to several artists we knew to give us more information on their initiatives via a Google Form. The information received helped us annotate the list-in-making. We created a map of various ways artists have come together to create a space for varied activities that would otherwise fall ‘outside’ their art practice.
The list was imagined as an open-source database that would democratize the list-making process. It has been a year since the first list was published, and not a single edit has been made by anyone outside of the Home Sweet Home team. The ‘open-sourceness’ has remained an ideological fantasy. Even though the list on this website came about as a critique of existing art historical discourse in the Indian subcontinent and the lack of material on independent initiatives by artists, this work will have its limitations — of funding, time, language, outreach, and internalized blindspots.
Making a list is an exercise in failure. But however incomplete, we like making lists. It gives us a framework, makes certain trajectories and genealogies visible, and shows us gaps in our research if we are willing to look. Thus, this page will be populated by multiple lists over time, focusing on different timelines, geographical locations, artistic practices, and themes emerging from what we broadly identify as self-organized initiatives in the arts. Each list is as incomplete as the previous one and is an addition to what has come before it.
If you want to suggest an edit to the existing content, please email us at project.homesweethomeindia@gmail.com .
When we initiated this research and publication platform, it was overwhelming not to find enough resources and writings on self-organized initiatives in the arts. Several transdisciplinary collaborations have fallen through the cracks of time for reasons like short-lived ideas, financial instabilities, and temporary spaces, remaining a footnote in the annals of academia and bibliographies. Today, many independent initiatives’ archives are lost; their histories are fragmented, and to be pieced together through available archives, oral narratives, and public memories. Thus, the first instinct was to make a list of what is known, and what can be sourced from existing scholarships — writings in magazines, books, online platforms, newspapers, and individual archives and memories. Apart from this, we reached out to several artists we knew to give us more information on their initiatives via a Google Form. The information received helped us annotate the list-in-making. We created a map of various ways artists have come together to create a space for varied activities that would otherwise fall ‘outside’ their art practice.
The list was imagined as an open-source database that would democratize the list-making process. It has been a year since the first list was published, and not a single edit has been made by anyone outside of the Home Sweet Home team. The ‘open-sourceness’ has remained an ideological fantasy. Even though the list on this website came about as a critique of existing art historical discourse in the Indian subcontinent and the lack of material on independent initiatives by artists, this work will have its limitations — of funding, time, language, outreach, and internalized blindspots.
Making a list is an exercise in failure. But however incomplete, we like making lists. It gives us a framework, makes certain trajectories and genealogies visible, and shows us gaps in our research if we are willing to look. Thus, this page will be populated by multiple lists over time, focusing on different timelines, geographical locations, artistic practices, and themes emerging from what we broadly identify as self-organized initiatives in the arts. Each list is as incomplete as the previous one and is an addition to what has come before it.
If you want to suggest an edit to the existing content, please email us at project.homesweethomeindia@gmail.com .
This is one of the early databases we created to map self-organized initiatives in the arts in India.