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Our collective is a platform for creative people from varied backgrounds to come together and reimagine new possibilities for sustaining and adapting Chitpur's unique local craft traditions. We are all committed to connecting people to this historic city centre and the diverse stories that have shaped the history of Kolkata.
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The Makers' Walk connects designers to the craft traditions of Chitpur. It is an introduction to this heritage crafts area, and is an opportunity to seed collaborations between leading designers and crafts people. We hope local creatives are inspired by Chitpur's long standing establishments to develop new products and incorporate traditional techniques in their own collections.
The first series of walks are on September 4th and 5th, 2019 and are by invitation. Let us know if you would like to join us. By Swarup Dutta, Avantika Jalan and Hamdasti |
A series of 4 workshops from 6th to 8th September where audiences can explore the craft traditions of old Kolkata through stories and demonstrations while also taking home a unique hand crafted object.
The first workshop The Art of Hastoshilpo is by bamboo and terracotta crafts people. Learn about how their crafts shape our cities festivals and takeback handmade lights for your home. The second workshop the The Art of Stenciling is about Kolkata's street art heritage. Participants can explore how stencil making is essential to this legacy and make their own art work. The third workshop The Art of Poetry features book binding, urdu calligraphy, urdu poetry and typography through stamp making. Finally, ending on a delicious note, we celebrate Kolkata's diversity by experiencing The Art of Cheenapara featuring Dim Sum Making and Chinese Paper Cutting from Kolkata's Tiretta Bazaar. By Art RickShaw, The Community Art Project, Binod Pakray, Bholanath Das, Usman Ghai, Panchanan Boral, Mr. Huang, Nicholas and Lily. |
The residents of Girish Park's Dutta Bari have been hosting a monthly haat run by the family members for many years. For Durga Pujo 2019 they are teaming up with Cal Bunka, a popular pop up night market, to host a flea market at this heritage house. Watch this space for more details!
By Paramita Saha, Nishit Arora and Rathin Ghosh |
Rishika's dissertation, 'Of People, Place and Practices: Chitpur Road's Heritage Through Time and Space", focuses on the four making clusters along Chitpur Road and the work of initiatives like the Craft Collective to understand how different articulations of heritage manifest over space. Through this process Rishika examines the political-economic aspect of 'making' along the road and how postcolonial urban condition has shaped the practices. Overall this research speaks to the larger scholarship of Critical Heritage Studies, Geographies of Making and Postcolonial Urbanism. It is also an experiment on creative research methods which are participatory in nature, as Rishika firmly believes in co-creation of knowledge production.
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The Chitpur Art Trail is the first collective initiative by members of the Craft Collective. We wanted to create a platform for showcasing the diverse artistic collaborations that have happened at Chitpur in the past, and also ensure people at Chitpur could have a space to create something of their own, that could sustain in the future.
The trail takes you through the bustling markets, meandering through the lanes and bylanes, studios, shops and heritage buildings of this historic neighbourhood. You can follow the specially curated mobile tour to explore the many hidden gems of this locality, and experience artworks and installations that highlight the beauty inherent in Chitpur's everyday hustle and bustle. The Art Trail launches at the Kolkata Festival on February 7th at 2pm. Read More |
Since 2014 several artists have been collaborating with local artists to develop products that highlight the unique cultural traditions of Chitpur. The products are available at Sienna, and CIMA art gallery. We invite other creative practitioners to come onboard and help take this initiative forward.
Read more |
As a continuation of his ongoing practice Swarup Dutta's takes his work from the gallery to the streets of Chitpur.
Artists Note: Our social identity is a construct that is built quietly over our growing years defining our gender, bodies, clothing, hairstyle, behavior and disposition. Defined by unsaid norms that we live by or are compelled to. They go unchallenged. Society is not kind to the rebels. They become the outcasts, the irregular, the mutinous, the outsiders. We ‘become’ as ‘being’ is simply not enough. We don masks and armours. We struggle to slip in and out of these sexual, political, religious identities that we keep up and keep at. Swarup designed a series of bamboo armours/cages, originally for a scenography project. These were executed by the bamboo craftspeople in Chitpur, Kolkata. It later occurred to the artist that these armours could act as costumes in tandem with the human body. Armour of Weaknesses shows bodies forcing themselves painfully in and out of expertly crafted bamboo structures almost like slipping in and out of real and assumed realities and identities. The bodies are androgynous and never sexually obvious, they are various and non-conformist to type, shape and size. Delicately poised on high heels, the dancing body contorts to accommodate various parts of his body. The artist-photographer is relentless and rapidly captures his struggle on camera. |
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By Swarup Dutta
