IARTS Textile of India Grant--Call for Applications 2026
Category
Origins
Inspired by a passionate ROM volunteer, the IARTS Textiles of India Fund celebrates the splendour and influence of Indian textile arts in perpetuity. The Fund was created in honour of Arti Chandaria (1960–2015), whose first love was textiles—each one she wore had a story. Born in Bombay, Arti was first moved by her father’s textile export business. As a new Canadian, she galvanized the community to raise $3 million to establish the Curatorship of South Asian Visual Culture, the Sir Christopher Ondaatje South Asian Gallery, and to fund new acquisitions. "IARTS" was the name of a community arts newsletter that she founded. She always liked how it incorporated the word "art" and the letters of her name.
Call For Applications
Due May 15, 2026
We are please to launch the next competition for the IARTS Textiles of India Grant. It is due by May 15, 2026 11:59pm EST. Late applications will not be considered. Please click on the sections below for more information. You can find a downloadable Word DOC 2026 application form and a list of other required items under Application Materials below.
- January 1, 2026 Call for proposals open
- May 15, 2026 Deadline to submit proposals
- June 15, 2026 Notice of decision
- July 2026 Funds made available
About the Grant
The IARTS Textiles of India Grant supports a project on Indian textile arts. This biennial grant of $15,000 CAD can be used anywhere in the world by anyone in the world toward a project that enhances critical knowledge and awareness about Indian textiles, dress, or fashion. Applicants can include scholars, curators, educators, community leaders, artists and enthusiasts. Projects can be research-based or creative. They must further the preservation, documentation, encouragement, improvement, or the interpretation of Indian textile arts, their history and/or future. Through the support of such activities, the grant is meant to encourage cultural understanding, institutional collaboration, and public engagement.
About the Grant
- A project on Indian textiles, which can include research in any institution or collection or with knowledge keepers, fieldwork, apprenticeship, training, creative work or interpretation. Maximum of $15,000.
- A public program related to the project presented in Toronto, Canada or online at the end of the award period, which can include a lecture or workshop, a publication, an online exhibition or resource, an installation, a performance, or any combination of these. The details of this program will be finalized in discussion with museum staff after the grant has been awarded. In the application, we are interested in your vision for a public outcome that can be put together by the end of the grant period. Maximum of $7000 is available for this part, which is separate from the $15,000 grant. Program funds will be directly administered by the ROM. Please note that funds cannot be used to mount a physical exhibition. Also, ROM cannot host printing and dyeing demonstrations. ROM can provide invitation letters for travel to Toronto but cannot guarantee visas for entry to Canada; international applicants should plan to apply for Canadian visas 4-6 months in advance. If the grant facilitates the production of artwork, ROM reserves the right of first refusal to acquire the artwork.
The award can be made to a person or a group of people. It is open to residents of any country, 18 years and older.
A grant of $15,000 CAD is given for the proposed project. The grant can be used for direct expenses related to the project such as transportation, visas, accommodation, supplies, equipment. Fees for professional services (such as videographer, translator) are allowed up to $5000. Applicants without full-time employment are allowed a stipend up to $5000. The award does not cover travel for the applicant's students, installation costs for a museum exhibition, or top-up of regular salaries.
- Applicant's demonstrated history of engagement with and passion for Indian textiles
- Originality and innovativeness of the project, especially toward new perspectives, sources, or methodologies in the field of Indian textiles.
- Rigor of the project
- Care and clarity of objectives and design of the project. The project should be clearly focused on a given region or textile type. Good justification is needed for multiple regions or textile types.
- The viability of the project within the time frame and budget, and how prepared the applicant is to carry out the project
- The contribution of the project to the applicant’s personal or professional development
- The impact of the project on wider audiences and communities.
- Revival of a technique for revival's sake Is insufficient. What is the larger reason, Impact and dynamic?
- Ethical engagement and co-production is required if the applicant is working with artists or makers (weavers, embroiderers, dyers)
- Letters of support
- Completed 2026 Application form. Please stay within the space provided. The full application should not exceed 7 pages.
- 2-page resume for the lead applicant(s). If more than one lead applicant, please designate who will be responsible for communication, reporting, and budget.
- Supporting letter(s) from institutions, organizations, or individuals with whom you plan to carry out the project. If working with makers, you must co-produce the project with them, and include letters of support from them.
- 2 reference letters in support of the project and lead applicant(s). Reference letters must be confidential and emailed directly by the referee to iarts@rom.on.ca. They must be received by May 15, 2026.
Click here for application form DOC.
Please submit all applications materials and queries to iarts@rom.on.ca
Past Recipients
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2024-2025 Pika Ghosh
Connecting Kantha with Colcha: Textile Histories and the Making of Early Modern Bengal
The project explores contemporary and historical embroidery practices in the Bengal region through the kantha, considered a household article and womens’ work, and the colcha, created centuries earlier as part of the maritime export of luxury textiles from Bengal for the Portuguese elite. Examining historical examples side by side, the project asserts a continuous history between these two groups, thus reimagining repositories of embodied knowledge, internalized through practice, that was handed down over the generations.
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2021-2022 Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan and Mala Sinha
The Modern in Print: Exploring Contemporaneity in Urban Indian Textiles
The hand block printing of mill-woven textiles in India’s urban centres in the twentieth century is an unexplored chapter of Indian textile history, as is the great local consumer demand for these same fabrics. This project explores modern urban textile-craft histories in India through the study of an archive of over 7000 hand-carved wooden blocks retrieved from a textile printing unit in Mumbai. The team seeks to show the emergence of a modern urban aesthetic and material culture through 'traditional' crafts through creating sample prints from the block archive, recording oral histories from participants in twentieth-century cloth printing in Mumbai, and archival research.
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Photo credits: left and middle by Debdeep Roy, right by Sajdeep Soomal
2021-2022 Sudheer Rajbhar and Sajdeep Soomal
Last. Saw.
The project builds on the work of Mumbai-based Chamar Studio (@chamarstudio), founded in 2018 by Sudheer Rajbhar. This nomadic cooperative of Dalit cobblers redesigns and stitches small objects and leather goods using a viable alternative: recycled material made from tire waste. The project included workshops designed to encourage artistic experimentation using rubber materials and awareness of health and environmental risks of some leatherworking practices. In Fall 2023, Studio Charmar, with collaborator Sajdeep Soomal presented a public program and website The Leather Archive of India.
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2019-2020 Swapnaa Tamhane
Mobile Palace
Swapnaa Tamhane is an artist, curator, and writer. She worked with wood-block carver Mukesh Prajapati, printer and dyer Salemamad Khatri (artisan-designer), and the female embroidery collective Qasab, all from the western Indian state of Gujarat, to produce an immersive textile-based installation that translates elements of the Mill Owners’ Association Building into repeated patterns. Inspired by the ‘mobile palaces’ of the Mughals and Ottoman tents, Tamhane's artwork dissolves the boundaries between what is considered traditional and modern artistic practice in order to decolonize ideas about art-making and craft. The work was featured in the exhibition "Swapnaa Tamhane: Mobile Palace" (March 12 to August 1, 2022) and accompanying publication. Learn more about her work at www.tamhane.net
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2017-2018 Rajarshi Sengupta
From Repetition to Reconstruction: Textiles, Tools, and Artisanal Knowledge in the Deccan
Rajarshi Sengupta, while a PhD student at the University of British Columbia, carried out innovative work on the creation and transmission of knowledge amongst block carvers and textile artisans in the Deccan region of South-Central India. Working closely with families who have practised their arts for centuries, Sengupta has shed new light on artisanal perspectives of knowledge production and facilitated a collaborative publication initiative. In Fall 2018, Sengupta and master block carvers present a public program at the ROM, where the artists share their practice with Canadian audiences. Read about his work on the ROM Blog and his institutional webpage.