Skip to main content

Village Festivals: Celebrating Traditions

Village Melas are the annual festivals of artist villages that work with indigenous art and craft forms. In interest of the artist communities, the melas have been significant in strengthening identity of the traditional artist communities and alongside have been operative in creating market linkages for the art.


These melas were initiated as resourceful interacting platforms for artists, visitors and the market. Apart from that the melas also staged for the implementation of social changes within the communities of the artists. Initially these festivals were started to familiarize outsiders with the artist identity and legitimize artists pride conforming the knowledge of the art and craft forms. Eventually the melas became grounds for community development as not only outsiders, but also nearby villages started to acknowledge the abilities of the artists and appreciating the art forms. 



This year the Melas were quite successful, some of them like the Madur Mela was a first time. Between September to December 2016 10 village festivals took place. I was the 7th edition for the POT Maya, Patachitra festival at Pingla and Baul Fakir Utsav, music festival at Gorbhang; whereas Mukha Mela at Kushmandi saw its 3rd edition. The 2nd edition of Dokra festivals at Bikna and Dariyapur, have been successful to propagate linkages and promote the craft. Many visitors from urban areas attended the melas and claimed to have learnt about the festivals from blogs, articles etc.





The Madur Utsav happened for the first time this year from 9th to 11th December. The weavers were quite excited to meet and interact with representatives from established organizations, as focus of the festival was FAM tour. Pertinent houses like Biswa Bangla, Fab India, Made in Bengal, Kadam, Halo Heritage and Neerosha. Apart from them, individual craft sellers, consultants and university students also explored the festival. Interactive sessions between the guests and the weavers provided a platform for discussion and feedback on the different products in terms of quality, texture, colour, designs, packing, delivery etc. Such interactions helped the traditional artists to understand modern audience, leading to the development of a new market. The festival acted as a perfect platform for opening up new avenues, partnerships and also gave the artists new ideas to work on as well as connected people on a larger scale.





The next Madur Mela is scheduled between Jan 12-13, 2017 and will take place at Digha, Purba Medinipur.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

  Preserving the Bauls of Bengal for the 21st century Baul music is the soul of Bengal and is essentially the music of self searching. Its about 500 years old. Chaitanyadev's Bhakti Cult movement, which is seen as the first social reform movement in Bengal, may be the basis of evolution of Baul music. Bauls believe Chaitanya's eldest son was the first Baul. Chaitanya started 'Keertan', reached out to the oppressed ones and mobilized people against the social divide (due to gender, religion, class, caste) and social evils like Sati (where widow was forced to be burnt alive along with dead husband). Then comes, Lalan Fakir, who used to live at Kushtia in Bangladesh and he may be called as the father of Baul music. Living the life of an esoteric, denouncing the material world, they urge people to rise above the narrow divides created by caste, creed and religion to find love, peace and harmony. Do not look for God anywhere, look for Him in the human body. Only then will

Culture at a Click

  Culture at a Click: Banglanatak dot com in partnership with Google Arts & Culture launches online exhibits on Bengal Patachitra and Purulia Chau. We are a social enterprise working for the safeguarding and revitalization of traditional art forms for more than 15 years. Our flagship initiative Art for Life (AFL) builds sustainable eco systems for community led safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. AFL promotes Village, Artist, and Art together and has evolved the process of art and culture led rural development. Our repository has images, videos and well researched stories of performing art and craft traditions across India. We are partnering with Google Arts & Culture to share about the intangible cultural heritage of diverse communities across India with over 250 visuals on the crafts and performing arts of Bengal from our archives that can be viewed online by people around the world. And there can be no better partner than Google Arts & Culture for this virtual

Darjeeling and Kalimpong Folk Festivals: Celebrating Hills’ Heritage

Tucked away in a green, serene, and often surreal, surrounding on the lap of the Eastern Himalayan Range, Darjeeling is not only a requiem for tired urban souls, and the undisputed Queen of the Hills, but much more… To begin with, it is home to 14 indigenous communities who make up an amazing mosaic of pristine traditions, rituals and folk cultures that have, unfortunately, remained virtually undiscovered by the world outside.It was with this long-felt need to showcase the rich intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of the Hills that the Rural Craft and Cultural Hubs (RCCH) project of the Government of West Bengal hosted its first editions of Darjeeling and Kalimpong folk festivals in April and May 2017, respectively. Around 200 local artists participated in the event at Chowrasta Mall in Darjeeling on 5 and 6 April, while over 400 local artists and craft persons took part in the festival at the Mela Ground in Kalimpong on 27 and 28 May. An exhibition on Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, whi