First-Hand
by Nitish Jain
Lucknow
Project Description
First-Hand is an artistic, multisensory experience that helps people pause, reset, and enhance imagination—promoting mental wellbeing through touch, taste, scent, and ecology-positive storytelling.
Expected Impact
First-Hand contributes a distinctive, much-needed voice to India’s cultural landscape by addressing mental well-being through a non-clinical, artistic lens. In an increasingly media overloaded, screen-heavy environment that causes fatigue—especially in urban India—there is a rising demand for spaces that offer rest, reflection, and reconnection. First-Hand answers this call through a guided, multisensory experience that activates touch, scent, and taste—senses often neglected in conventional art forms—while inviting participants to pause, reset, and enhance their imagination. Rooted in the PERMA model of positive psychology, First-Hand promotes well-being not by addressing illness, but by cultivating joy, presence, and meaning. It builds on India's rich traditions of sensory and embodied knowledge—from rasa aesthetics to somatic wisdom—while translating them into a contemporary, inclusive form. It invites audiences to re-tune to their inner selves and to the world around them through storytelling drawn from nature, caregiving, and animal life. In doing so, it bridges individual and ecological well-being, positioning culture as a site for both healing and awareness. On a local level, First-Hand expands the possibilities of what performance can be. It introduces a new kind of immersive art—intimate, non-visual, participatory. Globally, it contributes to a growing conversation about slowness, care, and sensory reconnection in a digital age. The change we hope to inspire is twofold: first, to normalize art as a meaningful tool for mental well-being; and second, to carve out space within India’s cultural ecosystem for embodied, restorative, multisensory experiences that center empathy, curiosity, and deep presence.
Applicant Background
My artistic practice crosses the mediums of performance art, architecture, storytelling and making objects. Interested in exploring non-visual aesthetics and atmospheres, I invite audiences to “sense” rather than “only see” art by incorporating touch, taste, smell, listening and vision in different ways. My approach with the senses draws from phenomenology and the rasa aesthetics (denoting essence, flavor or evocative phenomena). Through this I create subtle and layered reflections on complex themes such as the anthropocene and the climate crisis, highlighting post-colonial perspectives. I completed my Bachelors in Architecture and licensing (2012) from SSAA, India and a Masters in Arts (Scenography, 2018) from DAMU, Prague. I have been the recipient of various awards and fellowships, recently - In The Field at Wiener Festwochen, Vienna (2025); International Forum at Theatertreffen, Berlin (2024) and ASEF LinkUp: Asia Europe Cultural Diplomacy Lab at the Asia Europe Foundation, Singapore (2024). In an age of digital acceleration, my practice advocates rest and wellbeing - of both humankind and the ecology through a multi-sensory and playful approach. I have been making participatory and interactive performances, events, spaces,objects, lectures and workshops on sensing since 2018. As an educator I regularly lead workshops on creative education in India, Czechia and Germany. My recent works include intimate performances such as “In All Its Glory” (2023); one-to-one theatre - “Shahi Tukra” (2024), “Spoonfed “(2019); participatory installation - “Cartography of the Disappeared Cosmos” (2023); and interactive objects such as “Ticklish Fruits” (2022) & “The Forest Indoors: Moss Carpets for Feet” (2023). I have been showcased at various international art festivals such as Serendipity Arts Festival (IN) Theatertreffen (DE), Wiesbaden Biennale of Art (DE), Sharjah Days of Heritage Festival (UAE), Mala Inventura (CZ) and various regional and international art festivals in Czechia (CZ); and in regions and communities in Germany, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, UK, Italy and India. After working between Czechia, Germany and India for several years bringing creative, multi-sensory experiences for audiences, I returned to my home city Lucknow last year and was commissioned by Serendipity Arts Foundation for Shahi Tukra. The success and recognition of that show became the basis of this project. www.nitish-jain.com
Resources Needed
- Funding
- Mentorship
- Visibility
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