The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced 173 fellowships on Friday, April 7, to artists, writers, scholars and scientists, including three Indian Americans – Sandeep Mukherjee, Pramila Vasudevan and Shalini Shankar.

Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, the successful candidates were chosen from a group of almost 3,000 applicants and represent 49 disciplines and artistic fields, 64 academic institutions and 27 states and the District of Columbia. The recipients range in age from 27 to 79. Sixty-eight Fellows have no academic affiliation or hold adjunct or part-time positions at universities. In addition, the Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation is once again underwriting the Fellowship in Constitutional Studies.

Sandeep Mukherjee from Fine Arts Category ,Pramila Vasudevan in Choreography category, and Shalini Shankar in Anthropology and Cultural Studies. All winners get the same prize, around $50,000.

“It’s exciting to name 173 new Guggenheim Fellows. These artists and writers, scholars and scientists, represent the best of the best. Each year since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has bet everything on the individual, and we’re thrilled to continue to do so with this wonderfully talented and diverse group. It’s an honor to be able to support these individuals to do the work they were meant to do, said Edward Hirsch, president of the Foundation.

The size of grants vary and are given for six months to one year, depending on the scope of the project. The foundation was established in 1925 and has awarded more than $350 million in fellowships to more than 18,000 people who, according to the organization’s website, “have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.”

SHALINI SHANKAR

Field of Study: Anthropology and Cultural Studies

Dr. Shalini Shankar is Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Asian American Studies Program at Northwestern University. She is a sociocultural and linguistic anthropologist concerned with issues of race and ethnicity, youth and migration, language use, and media. She has conducted ethnographic research with South Asian American youth and communities in Silicon Valley, with advertising agencies in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and with spelling bee participants and producers in various US locations.

During the Guggenheim Fellowship year, Shankar will be based in Brooklyn, NY. She will research Generation Z, exploring how this demographic category can be defined in ways that more centrally account for the contributions of immigrants and minorities.

More Info – http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/shalini-shankar/

PRAMILA VASUDEVAN

Field of Study: Choreography

Website: http://www.aniccha.org/

Pramila Vasudevan is a choreographer and interdisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis. She has a combined 30+ years of experience in Bharatanatyam (classical Indian dance) and contemporary Indian dance, plus a B.F.A. in Interactive Media and a B.A. in Political Science, all which inform her interdisciplinary voice and socially conscious performance practice.

Vasudevan is the founder and Artistic Director of Aniccha Arts (2004), an experimental arts group producing site-specific performances that examine agency, voice, and group dynamics within community histories, institutions, and systems. Aniccha Arts is best known for the all-night outdoor performance project ‘Census’ (2016) and ‘In Habit: Living Patterns’ (2012), both commissions of Northern Lights.mn that were experienced by thousands of audience members through the Northern Spark Festival; and ‘Every Other’ (2015), a site-specific installation performance at the Grain Belt Studios, which was nominated for an ‘Outstanding Performance’ Sage award. Aniccha Arts also has been commissioned by the Walker Art Center, to develop and present F6 as part of the Momentum: New Dance Works series (2013), and by the Weisman Art Museum, as part of the ‘Clouds: Temporarily Visible’ exhibit (2016).

More Info – http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/pramila-vasudevan/ &/or  http://www.aniccha.org/

For full list – visit – http://www.gf.org/fellows/current/