In keeping with Shiv Nadar University’s emphasis on interdisciplinary research and situated experiential learning, the Department of Art and Performing Arts attempts to nurture rigorous and thoughtful praxis in these disciplines and their interfaces with questions of society and culture, history, politics, identity, philosophy, and technology. A vibrant visiting faculty and artist-in-residence programme encourages the development of creative alliances between practitioners, organizations and institutions both nationally and transnationally.

Organized visits to museums, archives, and other resource centres, as well as attendance at seminars and conferences at the national and international level further augment the process. The department follows a philosophy that is learner-centric. Faculty and students are peers working together in the production of knowledge through collaborative means and systematic processes of persistent and layered enquiry. The innovative and flexible course structure permits students of Art and Performing Arts to chart their own course of study as critical and self-reflexive scholars and practitioners, under the mentorship of experienced faculty. Continued pedagogical and historical research creates a fertile and dynamic environment for evolving forms of choreography and performance-making, visual art practice, design thinking and innovation. Shared facilities and open access to expert guidance across departments further enrich the symbiotic nature of learning processes in the University. The Masters Program in Fine Arts (MFA), will offer courses that would help students to develop bodies of work that address their questions, ideas, concerns and sensitivities. Each student will be assigned a primary mentor and two secondary mentors to help chart a course of study in accordance with the nuances of her/his individual practice.

Facilities

The Design/Wood/Metal/Clay workshops are equipped with tools and light machinery which would cover most student requirements. Shared laboratory facilities with other departments further widen the scope by providing possibilities for welding, sand-casting, terra cotta and ceramics.

Facilities specific to the visual arts include state-of-the-art media labs for projects involving video, sound and photography. Related equipment is available to students on the basis of project requirements under the supervision and guidance of expert technicians. Working studios and project rooms for individual research offer scope for intensive focus towards the development of radical creative trajectories.

Rehearsal rooms and auditoriums with varying seating capacities are available for theatre, performance-making and improvisational movement. Periodic workshops provide students with invaluable exposure to experimental and traditional theatre/dance forms from across the globe.

3. Energy Conversion Technologies and Energy Management

4. Surface Engineering

Research/ Project information (interesting research that aims to solve everyday problems or are unique.)

1. Amphibian Robot, Humming Bird Robot, Flapping wing Robots, Underwater Bio-inspired robots - NRB Funded

2. UP-CST funded projects - Performance improvement of Solar Energy Harvesting Systems using Phase Change Materials

3. Hybrid Energy Harvesting Systems

4. Naval Research Board funded project: Enhancing the Degradation Resistance of Marine Components

5. Development of Durable Self-Cleaning Surfaces (CSIR funded)

6. Development of superhydrophobic anti-bacterial coatings using agriculture waste (rice husk)

7. Developing systems to solve stubble burning problem

8. Vocal fold dynamics problems (DST sponsored project)

9. Application of machine learning in the Assembly line balancing problem

10. Energy harvesting from moving vehicles

Student accolades – Current or Alumni

1. University Gold Medal 2015 - Siddharth Sharma (Mechanical)

2. University Gold Medal 2016 - TS Shakhtivel (Mechanical)

3. University Silver Medal 2017 - A Tejashi Roy (Mechanical)

4. University Gold Medal 2019 - Ashwin Kumar (Mechanical)

5. ICCAR Singapore 2020 Best presentation award - Parthsarathi Rawat

6. First prize - American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Asia Pacific Student Design Competition

7. Winner of Charpak Scholarship of Excellence by French Embassy - Siddharth Sharma

8. Winner of UP-CST research grant by UG students

9. Admission offer in top ranked universities - National University of Singapore (Fully-funded), Purdue University, CMU, Texas A&M (Funded)

Teaching pedagogy

1. Experiential Learning approach - students learn while doing things

2. Project-based learning experience offered at mechatronics lab. Benchmarked on MIT courses and taken beyond

3. Going beyond textbook-based teaching by incorporating examples from our own research. This helps in creating deeper learning interests and better understanding amongst students

4. Employing a mixture of traditional and state of the art methodologies to teach core courses. For example, while we strictly restrict the teaching using traditional board-chalk method of teaching, some courses involve an on-hand simulation of their physics using platforms like Mathematica or MATLAB, etc.