Areeba Ansari

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA under Explorations will examine the urban youth subculture of skateboarding in Humayunpur, Delhi, using the camera as a diagnostic tool to delve into the social realities around the subculture as an affective act. Areeba Ansari is the Coordinator for this project.

Areeba Ansari is a Delhi-based creative professional, who has an MA in Mass Communications from AJK-MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She was the cinematographer of the film, City Moves, funded by the British Academy’s Humanities and Social Sciences’ Tackling Global Challenges Programme that was selected in the Jacaranda Tales Film Festival 2023. Areeba’s artistic collaborator Waquar Habib has an MA in Film Studies from Ambedkar University, Delhi. Given her experience, Areeba Ansari is best placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

This project will explore the subculture of skateboarding that has recently emerged in the South of Delhi, specifically Humayunpur area of Safdarjung. Skateboarding will be analysed as an affective act through camera as a diagnostic tool, where filmmaking-in-itself will be considered as a research method. The Project Coordinator Areeba Ansari will be involved in connecting with the skateboarders, ideation, followed by photography, videography and editing, whereas the artistic collaborator Waquar Habib will be involved in research, data analysis, theoretical formulation, and dialoguing with the skateboarders. 

The exploration aims to unpack the socio-political affects at play in the collective of youth that has accumulated around skateboarding, as an urban form. The exploration will also attempt to uncover the affinities that the urban youth of skateboarding subculture might have with the architecture and urban realities, around local shopping complexes, parks and residential streets where skateboarding is being practiced.  

The outcome of the project will be a photo essay or a short documentary. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be a photo essay or a short documentary along with images of artistic process.   

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Practice programme in the manner in which it attempts to foreground the camera as an artistic tool of socio-political forensics, while encountering an urban youth subculture practiced in the margins of the metropolis, defined by its architectural specificities that shape and guide this subculture.    

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm by convening an online gathering of artists coordinating Explorations projects. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This project is made possible with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment Fund.