7th-26th October 2026 | Kolkata, West Bengal | Edition 1, 2026
Welcome to the World of Ritual, Performance & Symbols with Auroville Film Institute in collaboration with Kolkata Centre for Creativity supported by Emami Foundation.
Venue Support – Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata, Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute and Studio Bari.
Overview
Tracing Durga is a multidisciplinary artistic research retreat and workshop meant for artists, filmmakers, photographers, performers, designers, architects, sonic artists, curators, cultural practitioners, archivists and researchers drawn to ritual, public space, material culture, craft, labour, memory, sound, image, performance and collective life.
The programme invites participants to come with relevant artistic ideas and interests, enter the lived world of Sharod Utsav, 2026 through observation, encounter and critical inquiry. Over the course of the program, their discoveries transform their ideas into evolving research questions and artistic propositions.
At a glance…
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Dates | Prelude eTalks (late Sep – early Oct) + 7–26 October 2026 (main workshop) |
| Location | Kolkata, West Bengal |
| Duration | ~18 days (including acclimatisation, fieldwork during Mahalaya to Vijaya Dashami, proposal development & public presentation) |
| Format | On-site fieldwork + mentored sessions + collective presentations + online prelude talks |
| Fees | Indian participants: ₹21,500 SAARC international: €300 Other international: €500 Fee does not include accommodation |
| Who it’s for | Artists, filmmakers, photographers, performers, designers, architects, sonic artists, curators, cultural practitioners, archivists & researchers (established or emerging) |
| Outcome | Refined artistic research question/proposition + public presentation of proposals |
| Organised by | Auroville Film Institute (AVFI) Programme Director: Anirban Datta Co-facilitator: Rrivu Laha |
The Enquiry
Sharod Utsav is a superposition of ritual, image, performance, architecture, economy, technology, spectacle, labour, memory and the temporary occupation of the city. More than a religious festival, it is a deeply embedded way of collective life, bringing together communities, economies, crafts, food, fashion, music, and ritual across generations. Its influence extends across Bengal and neighbouring regions, while its vast seasonal economy sustains a diverse network of makers, artisans, workers, performers, vendors and service providers.
What happens when Durga Puja is approached not as a spectacle to be documented, but as a complex living system to be entered, traced and questioned through artistic practice?
What is the significance of Akal Bodhan—the “untimely” invocation of Durga—and what histories does it carry? Can the phenomenon be unmade, not to dismantle it, but to reveal the histories, labour, memories, rituals and desires concealed within its spectacular surface? Can micro-archives of individual and collective memory find new forms? Can contemporary practices be traced through pre-modern ritual residues, material transformations and evolving economies of image-making? And can the communities whose labour sustains the festival be brought into focus without reducing them to the margins of its spectacle?
Kolkata as Site
During Sharod Utsav, Kolkata becomes a living laboratory of image, sound, material, memory and collective imagination. The city is temporarily transformed into a living gallery, a vast installation, a carnival and a mass performance.
For artists and researchers interested in ephemerality, ritual as practice, craft as knowledge, collective memory and the politics of spectacle, it offers an unusually dense and urgent field of inquiry.
While we proclaim the city itself as a Site, one is free to build on a site, contest it or see it as a portal that may connect to different times and histories. Even though Kolkata Durga Puja has a certain colonial origin, one is free to expand beyond the temporal or spatial boundary of the site.
The Process
The retreat unfolds through:
Site Visits · Conversations · Readings · Exercises · Reflection · Sharing Circles
Participants will encounter places, people, memories, rituals, landscapes and everyday lives, working both independently and collectively. Rather than requiring a fully formed project at the outset, the programme encourages questions to emerge through sustained observation, encounter and reflection.
Through this process, participants will develop and refine their artistic research question and proposition, taking field notes, and reflecting on their artistic forms be it film, photography, sound, writing, drawing, performance, installation, archival research or any other form.
The retreat concludes with a public presentation of the artistic research proposals emerging from the materials, questions and encounters of the group.
Who Can Apply
The programme welcomes established and emerging practitioners, independent researchers and artists developing new bodies of work. Applicants need not arrive with a fully formed research project, but should have a demonstrated interest in engaging with artistic research and be prepared to participate actively in fieldwork, collective discussions, reflection sessions and the final presentation.
Tentative schedule
Prelude eTalk Series
Weekend Talks 26-27 Sep & 3-4 Oct open for participants and a selected group of registered audience
Main workshop
26th September Onwards
Weekend Online Talks
6–7 October
– Acclimatise & know your neighbourhood/Kolkata
+
Welcoming session at Emami Art-KCC
8 –16 October
Encountering the Ecosystem
(10th oct Mahalaya) (16th oct Shashti)
Talks “Bishoy Durga Puja”
at Rabindra Bharati University, Indian Museum & Max Müller Bhavan, Kolkata
&
Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute of India
Extended Actualities, field visits and curated walks in Kolkata.
Kumortuli | Shobhabazar – Bagbazar | River side Ghats | Flower Market | Dompara
Community & family Durga puja Sites & keys sites of historical & contemporary Kolkata City.
Day visit to Guptipara (The first barwari/ public puja) & Bonkapasi (Village known for Shola/ Indian cork ornaments of Durga)
Mentored sessions, field work & iteration, improvisations & proposal development
Collective Presentations at Kolkata Creativity Center.
17–21 October
ENGAGE — Developing Means and Methods of Enquiry
(Saptami, Ashtami, Navami & Vijaya Dashami)
– independently & collective engagement on site + drafting of proposals
22–24 October
Preparation Proposal Presentation
Closed-door Mock Pitch.
26 October
Proposal Presentation & Way forward
at Emami Art-KCC
Key speakers
Tapati Guha-Thakurta
Tapati Guha-Thakurta is an eminent cultural historian and Honorary Professor of History at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. Her influential research spans art history, visual culture and urban publics, including -In the Name of the Goddess: The Durga Pujas of Contemporary Kolkata.
Moushumi Bhowmik
Moushumi Bhowmik is a singer, songwriter, writer and practice-led researcher based in Kolkata. Her work explores sound, memory, migration, borders and belonging. She co-created “The Travelling Archive”, an evolving repository of field recordings, songs and stories from Bengal and beyond.
Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri
Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri is an Indologist, writer and scholar of Sanskrit literature, the Indian epics and Puranic traditions. Known for making complex classical narratives accessible to contemporary readers, his extensive writings and lectures offer nuanced interpretations of mythology, characters, ritual traditions and cultural memory.
Bhabatosh Sutar
Bhabatosh Sutar is a Kolkata-based visual artist whose practice has transformed Durga Puja into a site of ambitious ephemeral and public art. A Government College of Art & Craft graduate and member of Chander Haat, he has worked across installation, sculpture, material and experiential design.
Parag Roy
Parag Roy is a printmaker, artist and Professor of Graphics-Printmaking at Rabindra Bharati University, where he serves as Dean of the Faculty of Visual Arts. Trained at Kala-Bhavana, Santiniketan, his practice and pedagogy encompass printmaking, drawing, illustration, art education and contemporary visual culture.
Ashish Avikunthak
Ashish Avikunthak is an avant-garde filmmaker, film theorist, archaeologist and cultural anthropologist, and Professor of Film/Media at the University of Rhode Island. His internationally exhibited films explore ritual, temporality, philosophy and experimental cinematic form, often challenging conventional relationships between image, reality and representation.
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher and writer working across sound, media and Artistic Research. A Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Bergen, his practice investigates listening, environment, migration, decoloniality and technology through installations, performances, scholarly writing and experimental sonic forms.
Gautam Bhadra
Gautam Bhadra is a distinguished historian of South Asia and a major voice associated with the Subaltern Studies collective. Former Professor of History at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, his scholarship has foregrounded non-elite histories, marginal voices, popular memory and alternative ways of reading archives.
Nilanjan Bhattacharya
Nilanjan Bhattacharya is an independent filmmaker, artist and writer working between Kolkata and Leipzig. His films and installations explore biodiversity, food cultures, Indigenous knowledge and public culture. A two-time National Film Award recipient, his interdisciplinary practice moves between documentary observation, research, text and contemporary visual art.
Gautam Chakraborty
Gautam Chakraborty is a Kolkata-based filmmaker, teacher and multidisciplinary scholar with over 25 years of experience. An FTII-trained film editor, he has taught at leading institutions across India, facilitated numerous workshops, and worked as filmmaker, writer, editor and consultant on documentaries, feature films and audiovisual communication projects.
Debkamal Ganguly
Debkamal Ganguly is an independent filmmaker, researcher and teacher of cinematic arts, and an alumnus of SRFTI. A former faculty member at FTII, he works across filmmaking, editing, sound, video art, pedagogy and research, with particular interest in space, memory and cinematic experience.
Sukanta Majumdar
Sukanta Majumdar is a sound designer, field recordist and Professor and Head of Sound Recording & Design at SRFTI. His practice spans cinema, theatre and sonic art. With Moushumi Bhowmik, he co-created The Travelling Archive, exploring field recording, listening, memory and acoustic histories.
Sumit Roy
Sumit Roy is a brand strategist, educator and founder-member of The Red Curtain. After working with Ogilvy & Mather and Lintas, he founded Univbrands, a learn-by-earning platform for brand-building. He spearheaded the Asian Paints campaign at Ogilvy & Mather from 1985–87, with the strategic objective of associating the Asian Paints brand with things considered “quintessentially Calcuttan.”He has taught at leading Indian business schools and continues to mentor creative practitioners across disciplines.
Kaur Chimuk
Kaur Chimuk is a trans-binary artistic researcher, performance artist and curator whose practice engages collective ritual, anti-performance, memory, care, decoloniality and participatory research. Working across countries and disciplines, they co-founded collaborative platforms including Tracing A City and zmayet, exploring alternative forms of artistic and social encounters.
Shruti Ghosh
Shruti Ghosh is a Kolkata-based Kathak dancer, teacher, choreographer and independent researcher. Her interests span dance, cinema, music, memory and performance cultures. Her artistic research has examined cultural memory, displacement and identity in Metiaburuz, particularly the continuing traces of Lucknow’s Nawabi culture in Kolkata (India Foundation for the Arts).
Saikat Mallick
Saikat Mallick is a Kolkata-based audiovisual and multimedia practitioner. He has worked across films, documentaries, radio programmes, websites and multimedia learning modules. His directorial work includes Koh-i-noor, awarded at the Jeevika International Livelihood Film Festival, and Uttoron: The New Dawn! He edited the National Award-winning documentary Voices Across the Ocean and served as associate director on Ocean of an Old Man, supported by the Asian Cinema Fund at Busan. His cinematography credits include Tracing Phalke. Saikat has taught Film Studies at West Bengal State University and teaches filmmaking at institutions in India and Bangladesh.
Soumyadeep Roy
Soumyadeep Roy is a Kolkata-based visual artist and the founder of Studio Bari, an independent home-studio and living archive. His multidisciplinary practice explores migration, family histories, neighbourhood memory and changing urban cultures through painting, drawing, installation, archival research and site-responsive encounters with Kolkata.
Programme Director – Anirban Datta
Anirban Datta is an Indian filmmaker, film educator and transdisciplinary artist whose practice is rooted in cinema and extends across photography, video, installation and performance. An alumnus of Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute (SRFTI), he made his diploma film Tetris, which premiered in the Cinefondation section of Festival de Cannes in 2006. His documentary practice includes Bhultir Khero / Chronicle of an Amnesiac, .in for motion, Wasted, BOM / One Day Ahead of Democracy and Kalikshetra, with work recognised through three National Film Awards and screenings at major international festivals and art platforms. Alongside filmmaking, he was one of the initiators of Kolkata International Performance Art Festival (KIPAF), and has developed a sustained practice of performance documentation and lens-based experimentation. His academic work brings active film practice, research and contemporary media discourse into pedagogy. Anirban has conducted workshops across film, media art institutes and universities across India, held key faculty positions at SRFTI Kolkata, FTII Pune, and KRNNIVSA Kerala.
Co – facilitators
Mome Bhattacharya
Mome Bhattacharya is an art historian, performer, curator and facilitator whose practice spans performance, visual research, design and public-space interventions. A former organiser-curator of KIPAF, she has worked in site-specific theatre and interdisciplinary research, and currently facilitates performance practice and community-based work with marginalised children, youth and women in Kolkata.
Monish Das
Monish K. Das is a Kolkata based filmmaker, writer, and an alumnus of FTII, Pune
Programme Design & facilitator (AVFI) – Rrivu Laha
Rrivu Laha is a media practitioner and educator whose work spans documentary cinema, visual culture and critical media pedagogy. A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India Rrivu has worked extensively in educational media, audiovisual training and public knowledge initiatives, developing innovative approaches to media as a tool for learning and social engagement. Since moving to Auroville in 2017, he has collaborated on archival and media art projects, and co-founded the Auroville Film Institute.
FEES:
For Indian participants – ₹21,500/-
For International Participants (from within SAARC) – €300/-
For Other International Participants – €500/-
*The fee does not include accommodation.
Accommodation is not included in the fee, so participants organise their own stay in Kolkata. Those who need facilitation feel free to get in touch
CERTIFICATION:
Certificate of participation will be issued by Auroville Film Institute.
FAQ
Why focus on Durga Puja?
Because it is far more than a religious festival. It is a superposition of ritual, image-making, architecture, economy, labour, memory and the temporary re-occupation of the city — an unusually dense field for artistic research into ephemerality, collective life and the politics of spectacle.
Do I need prior knowledge of Durga Puja or Bengali culture?
Not at all. Curiosity and a willingness to enter through observation and encounter matter far more than prior expertise. The programme is designed for participants from diverse backgrounds to discover the festival’s layers together.
Is this a documentation workshop?
It is something different. Rather than treating Durga Puja as a spectacle to be recorded, the programme invites you to enter it as a complex living system of ritual, labour, craft, memory and temporary urban life — and to develop artistic research questions from that immersion.
What is Akal Bodhan and why does it matter here?
Akal Bodhan is the “untimely” invocation of Durga. The programme explores the histories, desires and residues it carries, and how contemporary practices can be read through pre-modern ritual and material transformations.
Can I work in my own medium?
Yes. Film, photography, sound, writing, drawing, performance, installation, archival research or any other form are all welcome. The process supports the development of research questions across disciplines.
Is accommodation arranged?
Accommodation is not included in the fee, so participants organise their own stay in Kolkata. Because the city is extremely busy during Durga Puja, early booking is strongly recommended. Practical suggestions for convenient areas can be shared after selection.
How intense is the schedule during the main Puja days?
The period from Shashthi to Vijaya Dashami is immersive and site-based. Participants engage both independently and collectively while the city itself becomes the primary field of inquiry.
What happens at the end?
A public presentation of the artistic research proposals that have emerged from the materials, questions and encounters of the group, followed by a discussion of possible ways forward.
Do I need a finished project to apply?
No finished project is required. The programme encourages questions and propositions to emerge through sustained observation, encounter and reflection during the retreat.
Practical Information
Accommodation
Not included in the fee. Participants arrange their own stay in Kolkata. The city is extremely busy during Durga Puja — book early. Recommendations for areas convenient to key sites (north Kolkata, Kumortuli vicinity, etc.) can be shared after selection.
What’s included
- All programme sessions, curated walks, site visits, mentored fieldwork and the final public presentation.
- Access to the Prelude eTalk Series on Durga Puja themes.
- Guided encounters with the festival’s ecosystems of craft, ritual and public space.
What’s not included
- Accommodation, most meals, personal local transport, equipment, travel to/from Kolkata, visas.
Equipment
Bring the tools of your own practice (camera, recorder, notebook, laptop, etc.). No fixed gear list is required.
Language
Primarily English, with deep immersion in Bengali ritual, sonic and social contexts.
Timing note
The workshop is deliberately timed to the 2026 Durga Puja calendar (Mahalaya on 10 October, core days mid-to-late October). Participants experience the city at its most transformed — as living gallery, mass performance and temporary occupation.
QUERIES:
write to AVFI at filminstitute@auroville.org.in / +91 9372446397 (Rrivu Laha)
Good 👍😊 jay ma Durga