Watch Documentaries From Magnetic Fields Festival 2022's 'Fieldlines: The Forgotten Songs Collective'

In 2019, India's premiere contemporary arts and music event Magnetic Fields Festival launched its first-ever in-house residency 'Fieldlines' which brings folk artists and contemporary musicians together to build connections between the traditional and the modern while bringing them closer to local and international audience. For the return of the festival's flagship outing in Alsisar in 2022 after the COVID-19 pandemic, 'Fieldlines' partnered with social-work-through-arts organisation Rest of My Family and their multi-media project The Forgotten Songs Collective for the second edition of the residency.

In the lead-up to the festival, Chennai producer-DJ Vinayak^a and musicians from the Biate tribe, one of Assam's oldest hill tribes, resided and worked together at Rajasthan's Alsisar Mahal to develop a collaborative repertoire as part of 'Fieldlines: The Forgotten Songs Collective', which was supported by Goethe-Institut's M.A.P. // A.M.P. programme. The collective opened up its workspace on the first day of the festival for attendees to visit and observe before presenting a traditional performance of Biate music on the palace rooftop on the second and finally showcasing the developed collaborative repertoire on the third.

With the aim of highlighting different playing styles and cultures, and open avenues for them, the festival has also documented the residency with a 5-minute film and shared short profiles representing the folk and the contemporary artiste alike. Take a look at them below and follow Magnetic Fields Festival for more information.

Documentary

Profile: Epa Lallura

Profile: Vinayak^a

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Image by Parikshit Deshpande for Magnetic Fields Festival 2022