In first one decade of her working life Madhusree directed plays, both for proscenium theatre and street theatre, in Kolkata and Mumbai. Since early ‘90s she begun to make non-fiction films, both as director and as producer. After another decade she found herself in the arena of curating and exhibition making. And these overlapping practices eventually have expanded into writing and editing.
Another way of tracing her trajectory is through organizational engagements. In Kolkata she founded a theatre group called Anarjya (non-Aryans) and was the director of the group in 1983-1987. Thereafter, she shifted to Mumbai in 1987 and co-founded Majlis, a centre for inter-disciplinary art initiatives in 1990. She was the executive director of Majlis in 1998-2016. She is also one of the founding members of Academy of the Arts of the World (Akademie der Künste der Welt) in Cologne, Germany and served as its Artistic Director in 2018-2021. Within these institutions and outside them Madhusree had initiated several participatory, open access archive projects.
Her works traverse through hybridity, leakages, creolity, palimpsest, copy making and other instances of fluid cultures within the urban and public sites. Contemporary documentary culture and archival impulses are the axis points of her works. She is as much engaged with the issues of production processes, distribution platforms, solidarity networks and participatory pedagogy as with the creative and discursive issues of art making. Following this principle, apart from her own works, she has produced and curated numerous works of debutante artists and filmmakers.
Madhusree has been member of the jury in several film festivals across the globe including Berlinale Shorts in 2015, International Documentary Film Festival of Kerala in 2009 and Message to Man, St. Petersburg in 2001. She received Filmfare award for her first film in 1994 and Lifetime Achievement award in IDSFFK (International Documentary & Short Film Festival of Kerala) in 2019. The same year she was also awarded Best Cultural Manager of the Year prize by Cultural Council of Cologne, Germany. In 2006 she has received, on behalf of Majlis, the Best Cultural Initiative in Asia award from HIVOS: people unlimited, Netherlands.
She had received three National Film Awards for her films. Following a countrywide protest led by filmmakers against the state-sponsored rightwing interference into art education institutions in India she publicly relinquished the awards in 2015.