Amitava is currently working as a field investigator under the Ganga Cultural Documentation Project in North 24 parganas, West Bengal, India under Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage {INTACH} N. Delhi
Amitava’s research orientation is multi faceted and his quest ranges from Asian art and society to art education and its impact. The major research work he did is the artistic dialogue between Indian and Chinese artists after the grand visit of poet Tagore to China in 1924. Since his visit many Chinese painters came to India with renewed interest in Indian new art movement in Bengal and many Indian painters visited China and this discourse was very important in the broader context of Asian art . For this research Amitava made several research trips to China upon research grant from the Government of India.
Amitava published his book titled Survey of Sino Indian Artistic Discourse.
This book is available from the Kolkata based publication Towards Freedom and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Inst of Asian Studies, Kolkata.
On the other hand Amitava has a strong feeling the Indian tribal and indigenous art in remote tribal hamlets in India. Read more about Amitava’s work on Indian tribal art.
Past Assignments
- Research Fellow, under UGC, UPE Project, department of History, Calcutta University—project title ‘Situating Look East; the Cultural Politics of a connected History’ 2019-2020}
- Was Associated with Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata as Tagore Scholar under the Ministry of Culture, Govt of India for two years {2015-2017}. Research project titled ‘Art Movement in Bengal in the Early 20th Century—an Intra-Asian Artistic Discourse {online research paper available in Nehru memorial museum and library website New Delhi}.
- Project Fellow in Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Inst of Asian Studies, Calcutta 2008—2010, Project Title ‘Survey of Sino-Indian Discourse—a Twentieth Century Framework.
- Was associated with Asiatic Society, Calcutta as project investigator in Sino-Indian cultural/ artistic contacts in the early 20th century {2011-2012}
- Project Fellow Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Inst of Asian Studies, Calcutta, Research topic ‘Ideology and new trends in Chinese Art in the Post Mao Era”.
- Visiting Fellow in Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing from Dec 2003-june 2004 under Asia Fellow Programme under ASF, Ford Foundation 2003-2004.
- Visiting Fellow Dept of South East Asian Studies, University of Shenzhen, P.R.C for three months 2008.