IIT Hyderabad Launches Centre for Creative Arts

• IIT Hyderabad has launched the Centre for Creative Arts to integrate creative arts with technical and scientific education
• The Centre will offer credited arts courses, artist residencies, and support interdisciplinary teaching and research
• It will also collaborate with cultural organisations and run outreach programmes for schools and teachers

The Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IIT Hyderabad) declared the inception of the Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) recently, which may be viewed as a remarkable step towards the fusion of creative practices with technical and scientific education.

As per an official communiqué, the Centre is located in the Department of Liberal Arts and aims to elevate the place of arts and creativity in the academic framework of the institute.

The inclusion of creative and liberal arts in the curriculum of IIT Hyderabad has been going on for over a decade. These programmes got officially organized in 2014, starting with the heritage tours for first-year students and then progressing into academic courses with credits.

The university stated that the combination of liberal and creative arts now forms nearly 10% of the undergraduate curriculum, including areas like photography, fine arts, performing arts, and crafts.

The newly opened Centre for Creative Arts will congregate one- to three-credit courses in the area of creative and performing arts for both undergrad and post grad students. Additionally, the procedure will bring in performing artists as part-time and full-time teaching staff.

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These events will facilitate an ongoing student-artist interaction, and interdisciplinary collaboration will drag the artistic inputs to the classrooms of engineering, science, and design education.

Also, the Centre will be a place where arts research will be done, including doctoral studies. Artists who visit may act as co-supervisors for Ratna G, thereby creating a connecting link between practice-based knowledge and an academic inquiry.

Collaboration with cultural organisations such as SPIC MACAY is also part of the Centre's plan to bring in a strong academic and cultural atmosphere on the university campus through partnerships and joint activities.

There are also plans for outreach programmes for pupils from schools and their art teachers in order to prevent the early exposure to the arts from being totally neglected and to keep the community involved in a wider sense.

IIT Hyderabad Director Prof B S Murty, while announcing the launch, said that the Centre is a mirror of the institute's endeavor to infuse technology with creativity and culture. Dr Aalok Khandekar, Liberal Arts Department Head, said the Centre would be the driving force for the expansion of existing programmes and the opening up of new courses and research collaborations.