The Sarai Programme provides shelter, sustenance, and companionship for travelers and creators. It is a meeting place for interdisciplinary research, experimental media practice, contemporary art, and public knowledge generation through presentations, screenings, discussions, exhibitions, and publications. Sarai's activities include collaborations with local organizations, media labs, art projects, fellowships, and distributed research networks across multiple cities in India.

1. The Sarai Programme
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
a profile
www.sarai.net

2. sarai an enclosed space in a city
or, beside a highway
a tavern - a meeting place - a public house
where travellers and caravans can find
shelter, sustenance and companionship
a destination and a point of departure

3. www.sarai.net

4. Sarai-CSDS : Distributed Public Creativity
Interdisciplinary Experimental Media Practice
Research Contemporary Art
Architecture for Public Knowledge Generation
Presentations
Talks
Screenings
Discussion Lists Archive
& Web Content
Publications
Exhibitions Workshops
Seminars

5. Sarai : Activities, Nodes and Processes
Cybermohalla Publications Continuing Research
collaboration with ngo
critical pedagogy /Archive Intellectual Property
locality media labs Sarai Readers (English) Piracy/Commons/Open Source
free & ‘social’ software Sarai.txt (English)
working class spaces Deewan-e-Sarai (Hindi) Information Society
young people Media Nagar (Hindi) Surveillance/Censorship/
interpreting and imagining Cybermohalla Publications Information Politics
urban experience (Hindi and English) Media infrastructures
dvd/vcd/cd/book s/pamphlets Urban Environments
Language documents/images/posters
popular cultural materials
Architecture/Zoning/Ecology/
Hindi Language Resources Health/Labour
Localization of FLOSS Software
Hindi Lists and Publications
Art & Media Projects Publics and Practices
Sarai Media Lab Cinema/Video/Music/Cable
Translation Viewership/Circulation/Distribution
Raqs Media Collective
Installations/Video Production/Re-Production/Piracy
Residencies
Online Presence : Websites/Lists/Blogs/Online Archive/E Books
Events : Conferences/Seminars/Workshops/Talks/Screenings
Outreach : University & City Events/Informal Meetings
Collaborations : Local/Regional/International
Distributed Research Network

6. Collaborative Writing, Editing, Listening
Story Telling Performances / Radio
Discussion Lists / Blogs
Broadsheets / Wall Magazines
“Fearless Speech Needs Fearless Listening”

7. the Sarai cafe
a hospitable space for discussions after
events, performances, screenings
Public Conversations
with Visiting Artists
Harun Farocki
German Filmmaker & Artist at Sarai

8. Performance
Inder Salim,
Delhi based Performance Artist
Sarai Independent Fellow
Exhibition
Work by Artists, New Media Practitioners
Sarai Independent Fellos

9. Interdisciplinary Exchanges
Arundhati Roy, Writer & Jacques Ranciere, Philosopher,
with artists and scholars at Sarai

10. Events at Sarai

11. Conferences
Seminars
Workshops

12. Sarai Media Lab
Research - Rendition - Transformation

13. New Media Art Work (html based project) Produced at the Sarai Media Lab

14. Contemporary Art Projects
Produced at the Sarai Media
Lab

15. Lost New Shoes
A Measure of
Anacoustic Reason
Temporary Autonomous Sarai
The Impostor in the Waiting Room
The Wherehouse

16. Sarai Publications

17. Text

19. Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies
A blind peer-reviewed biannual journal that covers South Asian film
and media experience

20. The Melodramatic Public, Ravi Vasudevan
[Permanent Black, 2010]
Pirate Modernity, Ravi Sundaram
[Routledge, 2009]

21. The Water Cookbook , by Bhagwati Prasad, as part of the
workshop on peri-urban sustainability with IDS, University of
Sussex

22. Cybermohalla
work and publications

23. Collaboration between Sarai and Ankur
Ankur is an NGO working in the field of Alternative, Critical and
Non Formal Education
3 Locality Media Labs Located in a Working Class
Neighbourhood and in 2 Illegal Settlements
Text
Locality Labs networked with
Cybermohalla R&D Lab & the Sarai Media Lab
60 Young Practitioners Meeting Thrice a Week
Oldest Locality Lab is 4 Years Old

24. The CyberMohalla
Project

25. Designing with Architects at the Cybermohalla Lab

26. Sketches for a Cybermohalla
‘Hub’ Building from the
Architecture Workshop

27. Final Prototype
For a Sarai-Cybermohalla Hub/Studio
to be build in Delhi
(Exhibited at Manifesta 7, 2008, Bolzano

28. City as Studio
fellowships in
contemporary art
contexts for high intensity inter-
disciplinary processes
different locations in Delhi and at
the Sarai space
exhibition, gathering, library,
temporary archive, performances,
conversations and debates.
artists, filmmakers,
photographers, discursive
interlocutors, architects, writers,
urbanists, scientists, architects,
social actors and cultural workers,
neighbourhood initiatives

29. Associate Fellows 2011-2012
Agat Sharma response to the particular modernity of Delhi Metro.
Tanya Goel locate a space that can be visually
identified as empty
Dyuti Mittal see the city as though she has never seen
it before
Gowhar Yaqoob to evolve a dialogue between the
visual and the textual
Anirban Gupta-Nigam experiment with the world as
installation or museum space
Ujjwal Utkarsh short films to capture the oscillation
between aloneness and belonging, home and
homelessness,
Rashmi Munikempanna explore and intervene in the
city basing herself within the space of gender
Asim Waqif to look at derelict spaces, those who do not
fit into the formal Masterplan of the City.
Pratik Sagar faith as a potential tool for environmental
health
Sajit Mallick fictional character of kachra seth, who
roams in the kachra of the city, looking for traces

30. Collaborations and Conversations Flexibility & Multiplicity of Forms
Networked Creative Practice(s)
Continuing (Non-Goal Oriented) Research Intensive Face to Face Interaction Over Long Periods
Emphasis on Process rather than Product

31. City as Studio EXB series

32. text + performance
workshops

33. Sarai Independent Fellowships
Residencies

34. Undergraduate & Post Graduate
Students
in Universities and Institutes
MPhil and PhD Research Scholars
Research
College and University Departments
Independent Researchers and Scholars
Working Academics
Students
Practice Artists and Performers
Critics and Curators
Free Software & Open Source Programmers
Archivists
Journalists
Professionals
Designers
Writers
Activists
Fans and Enthusiasts

35. Narratives of Everyday Life The ‘New’ Economy
Labour
Conflict & Violence Urban Environment Architecture
Urban Childhood
Oral History Migration
Infrastructure
Sexuality Sarai Independent Fellowship Themes
Language Technology, Politics & Culture
Media Histories and Practices Tactical Media
Surveillance
Cinema, TV, Radio, Performance, Music, Print,
Internet Information and Society
Leisure
Sport The Contemporary City
Suburbs, Small Towns, Streets, Neighbourhoods
Intellectual Property
Open Source & Free Software Popular Culture
Cultures of Experimental Media Forms
Contemporary Art
Piracy Design
Comics
Law and Legality Photography
Essays Typography

36. Srinagar
Chandigarh
Delhi SARAI
Aligarh
Tezpur
Udaipur Allahabad Shillong
Jaipur
Ahmedabad
Mumbai Kolkata
Raipur
Pune Hyderabad
Goa
Vijayawada
Bangalore Chennai
Sarai Independent Fellowships Network
Madurai 82 Student Stipends
374 Practice Fellow

37. Distribution
of Independent
Research Fellowships
Aligarh
Udaipur
Goa
Vijayawada

38. Nancy Adajania’s
Project
on Digital Manipulation
and Popular
Photography

39. Images from Archive of
Popular Islamic Devotional Posters
Yousuf Saeed’s Research Project

40. Shahid Datawala’s
Photographic Research
Project on the Ambience
of Cinema Spaces
in Delhi

41. Residencies

42. How is Sarai seen?
as a space to develop & reflect on different kinds of
practice
as an occasion to experiment with new forms and
methods
as a means of exposure to inter-disciplinary flows
as support for accessing archival documents, books etc.
as a platform for new publics and creative work
as a safe space for free speech and critical discussion
as a means to reflect on protocols of knowledge
production

43. Our Motivations
A recognition of the need to address the crisis
that afflicts academia, the media, and creative spaces
due to :
Absence of incentives for creative, experimental and independent
forms of knowledge generation, research and creative practice
Absence of structures conducive to inter-disciplinary thinking & work
Absence of a dialogue between discourse and practice
Absence of a public conversation around knowledge and creativity