This edition of UnBox will bring together a group of organizations, agencies and practitioners from far-flung disciplines and ideologies under the UnBox Fellowships Programme, with a goal of not only sharing content at the festival itself, but also in the prospect of continuing a long-term collaboration.

UnBox Festival has always been about ‘Action at the Intersections.’ The 2013 edition of the fellowship programme has been co-conceived with our partner organizations, the British Council, the Science and Innovation Network of the British High Commission and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Fellows will work with diverse and distinguished organizations—Cultural Resource Conservation Initiative (UnMap), PRS Legislative (UnVeil), Digital Green (UnTill) & People Tree (UnBuild)—setting a high bar of expectation from ourselves and of our Fellows. Quicksand Design Studio is also hosting a fellowship (UnPlay), drawing a direct connection between the fellowships and the UnBox organizing team.

But why a Fellowship Program?
The phrase that’s being used the most at UnBox team meetings is ‘hands-on, minds-on’—a philosophy that we are keen to bring to the forefront with this edition of the festival. We believe that the richness of any learning experience, as well as the value of its knowledge and ideas, can only find proof when seen in action.

The fellowships program and workshops at UnBox festival in 2011 and 2012 have been extremely valuable to us in this regard. They enable us to bring rigor to the process of documenting, identifying and strengthening our understanding of the processes that enable interdisciplinary collaborations.

As a first glimpse into this process and as a way to gain insight into the experiences shared by UnBox fellows since 2011, our blog will feature “Voices from UnBox”, a space for past fellows to share their learnings and exploits. Keep your eyes peeled!