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Mysore, cropped; T. S. Satyan, Karnataka, India; Late 20th century; 35 mm slide film; 2.4 x 3.6 cm; Museum of Art & Photography, Bengaluru
South Asian textiles form a crucial part of local as well as global histories. The MAP Academy & Nalli Fellowships will support South Asia-based projects that generate new interest in the region’s textile practices among diverse audiences. The Fellowships combine Nalli Silks’ focus area of textile production and design, with the MAP Academy’s vision of fostering incisive research in the study of art histories from South Asia.
The MAP Academy & Nalli Fellowship (2025-27)
After completing a successful first cycle in 2024-25, the second and third cycle of the MAP Academy & Nalli Fellowship programme will open to new applicants in August 2025. A total of four Fellowships will be awarded, each carrying a one-time grant of INR 5,50,000.
This Fellowship programme is a collaboration between Nalli Silks, the heritage textile brand, and the MAP Academy, a platform encouraging greater and more equitable engagement with South Asia’s art and cultural histories.
Process & Funding Cycles
The application process will go live in August 2025, and close in October 2025.
Two fellows will be chosen for the Second Cycle and will be expected to complete their research project between February 2026-January 2027. Funds will be released in February 2026.
Two more fellows will be chosen for the Third Cycle, with the project’s timeline extending from April 2026-March 2027. Funds will be released in April 2026.
The Fellowship programme supports research into under-explored textile-related histories, practices, and traditions across South Asia. Applicants may propose projects on any textile-centric subject. The following areas of research are encouraged:
The Fellowship is open to early- and mid-career professionals. We invite applications from researchers as well as designers, archivists, journalists, writers, educators, practitioners, and also collectives and non-profit organisations.
The Fellowship supports a range of formats for research outcomes, including but not limited to:
The grant must be used to support one year of research, which may be part of a longer-term project. At the end of the Fellowship period, the following deliverables are required:
Collaborative work is permitted, and Fellows must credit co-creators and contributors, and mention them in their application.
The application review process will begin only after the application process has closed. Applications will be assessed based on the strength of their responses in the application form, which will also double as the project proposal.
Shortlisted applicants will be interviewed via an online video call, after which a final selection will be made.
The jury will be announced soon.
Final awardees will be informed via email, and public announcements will be made through MAP Academy’s social media channels.
The application form is structured to serve as a comprehensive project proposal. Applications will open in August, 2025.
The application link will be accessible on this webpage. Public announcements will be made through MAP Academy’s social media channels, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook.
Register your interest now. You will receive an email notification when applications open.
The MAP Academy is a non-profit online resource that focuses on the art histories of South Asia. Through its core projects — Online Courses, Encyclopedia of Art, and the upcoming Timeline of Art — it aims to make art histories more accessible, based on the idea that doing so can have a positive social impact through broadening perspectives on humanity, heritage and culture. The MAP Academy is a project of The Art & Photography Foundation, a Public Charitable Trust registered in Bengaluru in 2011, with 80G, 12AA, CSR and FCRA certifications, which also supports the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru.
Established in 1928, Nalli is an iconic, heritage brand known for wedding and Kanchipuram silks. In its nearly 100 year legacy, the family-run business has been known for its innovation, being the first to bring chemical dyes to Indian silks, and exquisite craftsmanship. It was commissioned in 1911 to present a handcrafted Kanchipuram silk to King George V during the reigning monarch’s visit to India following his coronation. Today, it is also known for its patronage of Carnatic music, Bharatnatram, and cultural arts for over six decades, in addition to its success as one of the largest sari retailers with 40+ stores all over the world. With the MAP Academy & Nalli Fellowship, it hopes to foster a deeper understanding of art, craft and textiles from underrepresented regions to a wider audience, aligning with the mission to make art histories more accessible and impactful.
Research Fellow
Educator Fellow
Anna-Louise Meynell is a textile designer, handloom consultant and independent researcher based in Assam, India. She has been working in India and Southeast Asia for nearly two decades in industrial textile design and with grassroots handloom organisations. She runs a weave studio and natural farm that is developing into a living archive of natural dye plants, silk cultivation and traditional textiles of the region. Meynell has long had an interest in the connections between textiles of Northeast India and Southeast Asia, and this research project is the beginning of this exploration.
The MAP Academy & Nalli Research Fellowship 2024–25 will fund her research project ‘Singpho–Jingphaw: How Textiles Transcend Borders.’ This project will study and document the textile narratives of the Singpho — a minority ethnic community of people — of Upper Assam and Eastern Arunachal Pradesh. The Singpho people also live in Myanmar where they are known as the Jingphaw. Meynell aims to explore the significance of Singpho textiles in their cultural relationship within the Singpho/Jingphaw diaspora.
Namrata Bhutoria is the co-founder of ColorAshram Foundation, a natural dye studio and emerging academy based in Mysore, India. Her work focuses on innovating with natural dyes and addressing the environmental challenges posed by synthetic dye-based water pollution. Bhutoria has trained a wide range of learners—from textile industry professionals to students and faculty at design and educational institutions—in natural dye techniques and sustainable practices. She has also mentored several emerging sustainable fashion brands across India.
With a background in visual arts, theatre, and classical dance, Bhutoria brings an interdisciplinary perspective to her practice, rooted in a strong ecological ethos.
As part of the MAP Academy & Nalli Fellowship 2024–25, she will develop a pedagogical project aimed at integrating sustainability into design education. This project will produce a series of short, self-guided learning videos combining hands-on mixed media explorations with curated resources such as books and films. It will also initiate conversations with institutions to incorporate sustainability as a commercially viable, practice-based component of the design curriculum. The project aims to equip future designers with the tools to create responsibly and to contribute meaningfully to environmentally conscious industry practices.
Researcher & Curator
A New Delhi-based independent researcher, writer and curator, Mayank Mansingh Kaul is known for his work on post-colonial histories of Indian textiles. He is a graduate in textile design from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.
Exhibitions that he has curated include Fracture: Red Lilies; Water Birds: The Saree in Nine Stories (The Registry of Sarees, Hampi, 2022); Fine Counts: Indian Cotton Textiles; Vayan: The Art of Indian Brocades; and Pat-Bandha: The Art of Indian Ikat (National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy and Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi, 2022–24), Woven Narratives (Ministry of Culture, Government of India, Hampi Art Labs-JSW Foundation and Devi Art Foundation, Hampi, 2023); Kāth Padar: Paithani & Beyond (The Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Maharashtra and TVAM Foundation, Paithan). Upcoming exhibitions include Textiles of Bengal: A Shared Legacy, 1600s to Now (Weavers Studio Resource Centre and Kolkata Centre for Creativity) and a survey of contemporary Indian embroideries (Sutrakala Foundation, Jodhpur).
He is the editor of Baluchari: Tradition & Beyond (Weavers Studio Resource Centre, 2016); Cloth and India: Towards Recent Histories, 1947 to 2015 (Marg, 2016); Take on Art Design (2012); Take on Art Fashion (2019); and Sutr Santati: Then, Now, Next (Baldota Foundation, 2023). His writings on Indian textiles, design and fashion have, further, been published in India and abroad and he has lectured widely on these subjects.
He is Contributing Editor for Architectural Digest India, Member of the Academic Council at MAP Academy in Bengaluru, and Member of the Arts Advisory Council (South Asia) at The Asia Society; and was Advisor to the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai on its ‘We Wear Culture’ initiative — a collaboration with Google Arts & Culture.
Co-founder, KAASH
Editor-in-Chief of beautifulhomes.com and Senior Advisor for Design at Asian Paints, Manju Sara Rajan is also the co-founder of KAASH, Bengaluru. She has previously served as the CEO of the Kochi-Biennale Foundation from 2016 to 2018 and as the Editor of Architectural Digest, India. She is a career journalist, with varied experience in international and national media. Rajan started as a reporter with Time magazine in Hong Kong, before relocating to India as a correspondent in its New Delhi bureau. She left Time in 2004 and moved to Mumbai to work with The Indian Express, and later Mint Wall Street Journal as the Deputy National Features Editor. She was also part of the team that launched the national news magazine OPEN. Before becoming Editor of Condé Nast India’s fourth title in the country, Rajan was Features Editor of Vogue.
Art Historian
An art historian who designs, Dr Annapurna Garimella’s research focuses on late medieval Indic architecture and the history and practices of vernacular visual and built cultures in India after Independence. Dr Garimella is the Managing Trustee of the Art, Resources and Teaching Trust, which has a research library and conducts independent research and teaching. She also heads Jackfruit Research and Design, an organisation with a specialised portfolio of design, research and curation. Jackfruit’s recent curatorial projects include Mutable: Ceramic and Clay Art in India since 1947 (Piramal Museum of Art, 2017) and The Past Has a Home in the Future (Dhoomimal Gallery, Connaught Place, 2024). Her newest books are the co-edited Marg volume titled The Contemporary Hindu Temple: Fragments for a History (2019) and The Long Arc of South Asian Art: A Reader in Honor of Vidya Dehejia (Women Unlimited, 2022). Her upcoming books include Designing India 1947 to the Present; A Face on a Face: South Asian Masks in the Vaidya Collection; and Digesting the Past: The Discourse of Sacralized Architectural Renovation in Southern India (14th–17th Centuries).
Vice Chairperson, Nalli Silks
As a hands-on leader, Lavanya Nalli has 20 years of experience across retail, e-commerce, strategy and operations. She started her career with the Nalli Group — a $100M national retail chain — focusing on new business development and growth opportunities, retail store operations, and a private label. She later launched a sub-brand that penetrated untapped markets, and incubated a venture that empowered artisanal communities by bringing design-led products to market. During her tenure, Nalli doubled its revenues, and expanded from 14 to 21 stores. Lavanya graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA in 2011, and worked at McKinsey & Company (Chicago) advising CXOs of Fortune 500 companies on issues ranging from top-line growth and profit improvement initiatives, change management programs and multi-channel strategy. She moved to India in 2013 into the e-commerce world as VP, Revenue & Shopping Experience at Myntra (Flipkart Group) and is now leading the ecommerce, private-label and expansion efforts at Nalli Group of companies and expanded its footprint to 40+ stores. The Economic Times named Lavanya as among corporate India’s fastest rising women leaders. She has also been named by Forbes as ‘Asia’s Women to Watch’ in 2016. She is a frequent speaker at industry events, and is an ambassador for Government of India’s innovation efforts and NITI Aayog’s ‘Champions of Change’ program. She is an Aspen fellow, and YPO member.
Head of Collections, Museum of art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru
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