Serendipity Grants

Artists contribute to the public realm in many ways, the outcomes of which may not always be readily defined as art. Public art projects may aesthetically enhance an environment; be utilitarian; respond to a particular site through material, form and concept; educate and comment on issues and events; commemorate the past; and much more. The project is free to observe as there are no class or social barriers in how it is encountered. It can become a familiar feature in the fabric of the city that generates a sense of ownership, a sense of place, and help in cultivating community identity. It can offer insights into issues through the research and expression of artists, and deliver a range of outcomes through community involvement.

There is a multitude of art and craft forms, folk traditions and festivals that have been steadily declining for many decades and are now almost on the verge of disappearing completely. The increasedly insular outlook and attitude of the majority of the subcontinent is also posing a new threat to many traditional practices that belong to marginalised faiths and communites. Due to the accelerated urbanisation in the rural parts of India, the circumstances are even worse for the agnostic folk traditions in these areas.

The Food Matters Grant supports projects that aim to contribute to the discourse around food and create a knowledge network to promote inquiry into food practices in India and South Asia. Through this grant, we hope to create a space for the exchange of ideas around food habits, traditions, and futures.

Serendipity Arts {Virtual} Grant is back for the second edition, inviting applications for digital projects across all disciplines responding to the interweb as a site. The Grant would be awarded to one collectives, group, duo, or collaborations to develop a project adapted to the digital space with funding up to INR 1 lakh. Projects have to be interdisciplinary in nature, inviting collaborative projects, and will be hosted on the Serendipity Arts website.

The SAF Arts Journalism Grant seeks to provide support worth 1 lakh to an early- or mid-career journalist/reporter in an effort to develop a body of reportage around creative communities/ practices in the subcontinent. Situated as we are within an ecosystem that is more saturated with initiatives for critical and curatorial writing, this Grant hopes to address a seeming lacuna in opportunities for accessible arts journalism, to drive greater interest and public stakeholdership in the arts. The awardee will be chosen from a pool of candidates nominated by the Jury.

The Serendipity Arts Classical Arts Mentorship Grant offers financial support to practitioners in the field of Indian Classical music and dance who wish to train under a mentor for a period of six months. The model for training follows the traditional teacher-student (Guru-Shishya) format of knowledge transmission and practice whereby the student learns and resides under the tutelage of the mentor for the period of their education. The goal of the grant is to facilitate the enhancement of the applicant’s practice either through further pursuance of their discipline or through the acquisition of allied art practices and skills within the Indian Classical music/dance traditions.

Serendipity Arts Production Grant for Independent Musicians is for all independent music creators across different genres to support the process of creating, recording, producing and releasing and/or presenting new music. The grant will be awarded to bands, duos, groups or individual independent musicians with a grant of up to INR 1,00,000.

In 2020, the Serendipity Arts Foundation and Les Rencontres d’Arles announced the biggest lens-based media grant, supported by the Institut français en Inde, with the shared purpose of promoting cultural practices in the South Asian region. The winner of the previous grant, Sathish Kumar, was awarded the grant to develop and showcase his proposed project, Town Boy at Les Rencontres d’Arles in July 2022.