Our work is sacred to us. The Awalkhana Institute currently works within many domains, all of which engage in building a sense of community, research, training and communicating the message of the importance of Everyday Heritage. The change starts here and now.
This is the very beginning of our entrepreneurial venture; this is Awalkhana
Awalkhana Institute has initiated the Craft for Empowerment Initiative (CEI) in Bihar aiming to develop a vibrant textile heritage craft sector by converting the everyday heritage craft skills of the artisanal community into viable enterprise, thereby ensuring socio-economic inclusion of the rural and the marginalized society. As part of this project, we are aiming to identify group of women with skills in everyday textile heritage. In total, 10 women groups have been identified with the help of our field experts in three districts of Bihar namely Arrah, Patna and Samastipur mapping their skills, socio- economic conditions and intent to continue in everyday craft work.
Going forward, we would be working towards building their skills and capacities to cater to larger audience for supporting the economy of these artisans through new paradigms of tools like social entrepreneurship, design thinking, sustainable approaches, research and development, documentation and effective use of digital tools and technologies.
In Hassanpura, a small tehsil in Arrah district of Bihar, we identified a unique form of textile craft produced by women. The women in this region produce unique forms of quilts- utilizing threads from older sarees, bedsheets and other material to recreate a quill with patterns and motifs. This craft of making quilts requires an eye for detailed embroidery, strenuous skills and aesthetic sense, produced by most women in the village, particularly the Dalit community is an everyday activity.
We partner with research organizations and institutes for initiating research, training and knowledge building in the field of everyday heritage. We aim to establish linkage between the informative, experiential and creative aspects of everyday heritage, consolidating and converting them into usable practical models for viable economic ideas, innovation and sustainability. Under the Experiential Learning Module (ELM) of Young India Fellowship (PG Diploma Programme) of Ashoka University, one of the pioneers of Liberal Arts Education in India, we introduced a team of students undertaking Awalkhana Institute’s ELM Programme to conduct a baseline, exploratory research on the scope and challenges of reviving the art of Bharua Kashida of Bihar.
Everyday heritage remains invisible and excluded. It is most often lost either due to its irrelevance and lack of utility in the everyday life and existence of people or with its overarching reliability on cultural memory. At Awalkhana, we believe that there is an urgent need for people’s movement and participation in the field of everyday heritage, a rigorous detailing and archiving of cultural memory and institutional platforms to tap into the transformative power of everyday heritage. Through our initiatives we advocate and create awareness on everyday art and heritage of common people, allowing it to come into contact, and forge dialogue with the dominant, public and niche forms of heritage and art. We prepare database of region’s indigenous art and craft forms, socio-economic profiling and documentation holding the key to conserving intangible cultural heritage.
Through our heritage education initiatives, we aim to collaborate with schools and colleges to promote research and scholarship in the field of ‘everyday heritage’. In one of our collaborations with Ashoka University, a team of three represented an academic paper on ‘A Socio-Economic Analysis of Kashida and Baawaan Buti of Bihar: The illustrious past, contemporary neglect and hopes for the future’ at The Jaffna Public Library organized by Lanka Decorative Arts in Sri Lanka.