International Fellowships in Creative Exploration
For artists, designers, researchers, and makers at the edges of their discipline. Each fellow receives a monthly stipend for the full year. The work is entirely theirs.
Selected for the depth and ambition of proposed work, not for prior credentials alone. No payment is required from fellows at any stage.
Apply as a Fellow Fund a FellowshipThe Fellowship
The International Fellowships in Creative Exploration exist because the condition that most consistently produces significant creative work is one that most institutions find hard to provide: unstructured time, with modest material security, in a place with genuine intellectual depth. Six fellowships are offered annually to exceptionally creative individuals — to enable them to spend a year in the spiritual ambience of Puducherry, to conduct free creative explorations in areas of their own choosing.
The objective is to provide a space to work together, discovering one's own inner nature in a spirit of exploration without institutional structures or rules. The presence of other creative individuals, and the spiritual ambience of Puducherry — with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Auroville, Matri Mandir, and the pristine beauty of nature — will allow selected candidates to find their own calling and voice in an atmosphere of complete freedom.
Each fellow receives a stipend of Rs 50,000 per month for the year — supported through the generosity of individual donors, foundations, and institutions who believe that sustained creative inquiry deserves direct material support. The only formal expectation is a single Public Presentation at the close of the year — what form that takes, lecture, exhibition, performance, workshop, or publication, is entirely the fellow's decision. The fellowships are cross-disciplinary: emerging Digital and Immersive Media, Interactive Arts, Fine Arts, Music, Dance, and Design research are all equally welcome.
Six fellows selected annually, commencing together on 1 September. The cohort is small by design — SAKS is not a large residency programme but an intimate intellectual community.
Each fellow receives Rs 50,000 per month for the full year — funded through donors and sponsoring institutions who believe that sustained creative freedom requires direct material support. No payment is required from fellows at any stage. Fellows arrange their own accommodation in Puducherry — guidance on options is provided on selection.
Each fellow gives one Public Presentation at SAKS at the close of the year. Lecture, exhibition, performance, workshop, or publication — the form is the fellow's choice. This is the only formal deliverable.
Visual artists, sculptors, printmakers, photographers, filmmakers, musicians, and performers at any career stage. The fellowship is suited to those at a moment of transition or deepening — not necessarily those with the most established profile.
Designers working in any field — graphic, industrial, spatial, interaction, textile, digital — whose proposed year of work goes beyond studio production into inquiry, experimentation, or documentation. Design researchers and historians equally welcome.
Writers, critics, curators, and scholars working on subjects connected to Indian art, design, aesthetics, cultural history, or the relationship between tradition and contemporary practice. The fellowship provides the time a book or sustained research project requires.
Puducherry is not an incidental choice. The Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville have made it a centre for contemplative creative practice for decades. It is a place where artists, musicians, dancers, and researchers come to work outside the pressure of a metropolitan art market — and where that independence is normal rather than unusual.
Puducherry has numerous Yoga, Meditation, Dance and Music courses, Craft Workshops and Studios, and a large community of artists to forge friendships for life. The French Quarter, the Ashram neighbourhood, the proximity to Tamil Nadu's craft and temple architecture tradition give the town an unusual density of serious practitioners from many disciplines.
Fellows should expect a quieter pace than Mumbai or Bangalore. That is the point.
Apply for a Fellowship
Six fellowships are offered annually to exceptionally creative individuals across all disciplines — artists, designers, researchers, research writers and scholars. Fellows are selected on the depth and seriousness of their proposed year of work, not credentials alone. Each fellow receives a stipend of Rs 50,000 per month for the year, funded through donors and sponsoring institutions. No payment is required from fellows at any stage. The application asks for a detailed proposal of the year you intend to spend — what you want to make, research, or explore, and why Puducherry is the right context for it.
Fund a Fellowship
The fellowships are funded through sponsorship — by individuals, foundations, companies, and institutions who believe that sustained creative inquiry needs direct material support, not just prizes or commissions.
Sponsors fund one or more fellowship slots per year. Named fellowships carry the sponsor's name or a dedication of their choice. The arrangement is handled offline through the Enquire form.
Enquire about sponsorship →