The Research Diary is the pre-submission dissertation seminar for MFA students in Art History & Visual Studies at the Department of Fine Arts, University of Hyderabad. The department conducts this in the fourth semester, where the students present their master’s dissertation project. On 22nd April, the Fine Arts department held The Research Diary2024 from 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM. The invited externals were Dr Rajarshi Sengupta, assistant professor in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and Ms Lina Vincent, an independent art historian and curator with decades of experience in arts management in the cultural industry.
The presented research topics were based on the commonalities in material cultural and artistic production, engaging placemaking and grounded artistic and historical practices. Aparna Dhyani presented on the Saifabad Mint Museum and its process of recreating the princely persona through power sharing and collaborative process. Pooja Mallepula’s presentation argued how Bathukamma, as the state festival of Telangana, is making a new place in the ecosystem of the cultural industry. It, in turn, pushes many intangible creative practices to vanishing points, which call for safeguarding. Kadambari Anuannal’s presentation on site-specific art as an expansive pedagogical tool in the art institutional realm discusses how community-oriented learning, creativity and knowledge production shape the history of the art institution.
By underscoring their varied economic backgrounds and cultural identities, these students mentioned that their experience of doing research at the University of Hyderabad is also experienced with Hyderabad’s rapidly growing urban population, the increasing traffic congestion, the high volume of motorcycles, cabs and cars zipping through the city throughout the day during their fieldwork. However, at the heart of their research process lies a fascination with the spirit of places, such as the silence of libraries, remains in sites, and sonic streets in which every bearing possesses an intrinsic character shaped by its history, agency and environment. Thus, their research diaries are the fragments of these surroundings and hold the pages of the sights, sounds and atmospheres that define their research positionality to uncover its hidden stories.