fellowships | arts research

At reFrame, we understand that some art projects require a longer gestation period of documentation and engagement with the subjects, region and materiality. Hence, as the ever first project of reFrame Initiatives Foundation, we have awarded an arts research fellowship for research, documentation and film on hybridity and citizenship in the borderland around Himalayas to the eminent archivist, curator, filmmaker and writer, Madhusree Dutta.

The project Flying Tigers borrows its title from a WWII military operation that the US army initiated between Assam in India and Kunming in China in 1941. The Flying Tigers operation sent military and civilian aid to China by crossing the Himalayas through Assam. The endeavor brought in massive movements of goods, peoples and machineries into the idyllic landscape of Assam and changed its social fabric forever. Following this lead, the project will trace the hybridity and overlapping ethnicity in the citizenry of the region, documenting and archiving these communities through testimonies, oral histories and family archives.