Craft as Self-expression | A workshop by Khushboo Bharti

with Sreejata Roy, FICA Club coordinator 

The workshop was conceived with the idea that craft may not just be viewed as a traditional skill but as a medium of self expression. Crafts in India are associated with utilitarian and decorative creation of products which are produced by not just individual craftsperson but most times entire family, further extending to an entire community, indulges in production of article with visible similarity and insistence on continuity of traditional design, purpose etc.

The above mentioned points are although important for the sustenance of crafts in the Indian visual culture what is missing is a critical analysis to general value regarding the efforts of an individual expertise and skill.

The workshop thus emphasized the value of handmade as a philosophy, an act and a thought, a process, not just an association of craft as a decorative end product found in craft shops, emporiums and craft fairs. Thus valorizing the collective or individual human endeavour and labor in creative process.

The workshop overview -

This workshop was planned with the possibility and potential to be continued over duration of period and not just end with one week extensive module. Workshop thus was an introduction and overview of various possibilities and directions that students would explore and further delve and evolve over the consecutive period after the workshops with emphasize on intermediary feedback sessions.