The Dara Shikoh Fellowship aims to bring together individuals across varied disciplines and backgrounds in a fifteen-day immersive experience which allows them to interact with local students, artists, craftsmen, writers, and theatre practitioners. Each Fellow will bring to the program an independent project that creatively engages with the region, and will have the opportunity to collaborate with experts in the field within Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh to build upon the project over the course of the program. Creative engagements with customs and traditions will be highly encouraged: for instance, by applying postmodern sculptural critique on Ladakhi metal work, combining jazz with Kashmiri Sufiana Kalam music, or juxtaposing Pahari miniatures with Surrealist paintings. Fellows will have the option to display their work through events and workshops or to organise panels and seminars to further delve into their areas of interest, for which venues will be provided by the program. At the culmination of the program, Dara Shikoh Fellows will be expected to produce a piece which best crystallises their experience: this could be a work of literature, a painting, a work of craft or any other creatively inspired piece that will feature in the Centre’s annual publication. Their interaction with the program will not end here, however: all Fellows will become members of the Dara Shikoh Centre for the Arts and will have access to its resources for any projects linked to the region that they pursue in the future.
