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Journalism of Courage
On THE banks of the Daya river, 15-odd km from Bhubaneswar, the day begins at the crack of dawn in Balakati. The narrow alleys of the village resonate with the sound of the rhythmic hammering of molten bell metal or kansa — an alloy of copper and tin. Once associated with ritualistic practices, the tradition and skill that have been transmitted through generations have hardly been documented.
Over the last month, three young art practitioners — Disharee Mathur from Rajasthan, Shillong-based Kirti Kumari and Ritaban Ghosh from West Bengal — have collated historical facts and folklore, statistics, and first-person accounts to document the intricacies of the art form and the lives of these artists.
Brought together under the Odisha Craft Odyssey (OCO) programme by BEADS — a Bhubaneswar-based design studio that aims to rejuvenate the art heritage of Odisha — and the MGM Foundation, the curatorial residency programme culminated with an exhibition at the Lalit Kala Regional Centre in Bhubaneswar. “Our goal is not just to question the historically marginalised position of the craftsperson but to complicate perceptions further by asking what truly constitutes art today,” says Premjish Achari, curator of the OCO residency.
He adds, “The artisans are not just represented but are also active participants in the project. Rooted in a critical approach, our focus is on understanding the complexities of bell metal practices, including metallurgy, social positions, economic equations and the history of the very objects that continue to be created.”
The groundwork included visiting bell metal clusters across the state as well as building personal connections with the practitioners based in Balakati. Mathur recalls how she took time to identify an artisan with whom she would co-produce contemporary designs in bell metal. Her persistence led her to Achut Sahu. Together, they have co-created several objects, including a sonic lamp that responds to the clanging-metal sound, which is an intrinsic part of the Balakati landscape. She had shared the design at a weekly meeting to discuss the progress of the project in Balakati alongside photographs that documented the laborious process that begins with sourcing metal to melting them into 1 kg ingots, followed by beating heated ingots into shape.
“My project revolves around understanding the craft from all areas of making, material and interpersonal relationships between the artists in the workshops,” says Mathur. She also uses speculative design to map the past of the craft and project it into the future of bell metal and its presence inside our homes.
Ramchandran Sahu, 61, who learnt the skill from his grandfather at the age of eight, is among the several artisans who feature in Kumari’s photographs of bell metal workshops. He rues how wages are meagre for the hard labour. “My focus is on the vernacular knowledge system of the craft. In the Indian context, dhatu and elements also have special significance and this age-old process has several stories and folklore around it — I wanted to unravel these histories and knowledge,” says Kumari.
She shares how the workshops operate according to a roster, where artisans engage with varied processes on different days. “I am looking at the different aspects that trace how the material takes new shape and acoustic qualities in the hands of the craftsperson… The workshops are striped of colour; there is only the colour of fire,” she adds.
Ghosh has hours-long interviews with artisans running on a loop — the questions he throws at them giving insight into their thoughts, ranging from “What do you think of people like us?” to “How do you define yourself?” The answers retract to the premise of the exhibition — breaking the binaries between art and craft — as their responses range from ‘artist’ to ‘craftsperson’ and ‘repetitor’, who makes the same product endlessly.
