Embodying traditional knowledge through the process of learning crafts

Craft week at Marudam: where everyone is a learner

For 14 years now, Marudam has been host to an annual craft week, a celebration of diversity and of endangered skills. The craft week has been conceived as a space to celebrate the knowledge and expertise of working with hands, and to showcase the talents of artisans. We live in the times of machinemade-products. Traditional craftspeople, and along with them their skills, are fast disappearing.

The ability to make what we need with our own hands is a very special skill. It is sustainable, creative, and frees us from dependencies. To keep as many of these skills alive as possible, by imparting it to children, is the core idea of the craft week. We have around 15 different schools from various parts of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka participating in the event. It is also a space for both children and adults to learn together.

Celebrating the crafts by crafting diversity

For the craft week, we invite traditional crafts people with skills in forging, basket making, kalamkari, natural dyeing, weaving, stone carving, wood carving, bamboo work, clay work, etc., to teach both children and adults. In 2023, over 30 artisan groups had joined us. Besides facilitating the joy of learning new skills during this week, it is also our endeavor to support the artisans financially.

The event is a not-for-profit one. It is supported by the contributions made by all the participants. This includes those from privileged as well as from less privileged backgrounds. The contributions are made in the spirit of the ethos of the craft week. Everyone contributes to the best of their capacities.

In keeping with the spirit of diversity, adults and children coming from various social and economic backgrounds share resources equally. The collective students group from these schools is a confluence of urban, rural and tribal children. The urban students come from many cities, including, Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore and Belagavi, etc. The rural children join the craft week primarily from the neighboring villages. The tribal children are from communities such as the Irulas, Lambardi, and Boom Boom Mattukaran. The children also come from all across the various economic strata.

Some of the participating schools have students mostly from an upper class, urban background. Others cater to students from relatively lower economic classes. The participating schools vary in their pedagogical approaches too. Both regular matriculation schools and alternative schools participate. Among the latter, some try to function as centers of self-knowing through dialogue and observation inspired by the teachings of J. Krishnamurthi, and some focus on integral education as defined by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Some others are Montessori schools. There are also schools which provide education to children from tribal communities suited to the local needs.

Additionally, in the last few years, we were also joined by organizations such as a residential center for neurodivergent adults, and a special school which is a neurodiverse community of children and adults. Everyone learnt together in a natural setting. We also have had homeschoolers join us.

Some children come from rural communities. Here many of the artisans, albeit decreasingly, continue to be a part of their communities and of their lives. For example, rope making is a life skill. However, many who see their families and community members do it, often echo the attitude of our machine made society. They often do not value it as a skill, either monetarily or otherwise.

Since they are used to it, they miss acknowledging the craft’s specialness. They see it as a mundane activity, taking it for granted. For such children, craft week is a space where the skill is acknowledged by people from all backgrounds. This plays a role in bringing back the lost dignity to a craft. These rural children then start giving the crafts, something their own parents, uncles, grandparents are skilled in, more importance.

The children who come from urban, uppermiddle class backgrounds are used to having people from less privileged backgrounds work for them, as domestic helps and drivers, etc. The space of the craft week challenges this paradigm and reverses it. The children who have never worked with their hands before or aren’t used to it, are taught patiently by the skilled craftspeople. The latter often come from underprivileged communities. As the rural artisans take the role of educators, and the children learn from them, old conditionings are challenged.

Rural artisans as educators

The craft week is also an education of being with a process, from the start to the end, shifting the focus away from the end product. For example, an artisan would teach the children to make fiber from banana stems, and another would teach them to make a bag from this fiber. The children would learn to make paper and take this paper to then learn how to bind it to make it into a book. This translates to a collaboration across crafts. As the children embark on a new kind of learning, it also offers a change of views for the facilitators who are handholding the process.

For the artisans teaching a new set of people, who are not their sons and daughters, for them too it is a journey in education. A few years ago, we had a banana fiber artisan join us. Her family had been practicing the craft for generations. While teaching a group of children, she saw potential in a child. In her excitement, she set her expectations very high. She made the child do the braiding thrice and more. The child, initially enthusiastic, broke down.

When this happened, the woman too broke down. She wasn’t aware that she had hurt the child. Her expectations and pushing had only come from her seeing a potential in the child. However, the child found it harsh. Eventually, they settled on making a simpler bag.

The artisan shared that for her it was a lesson. Teaching children who are not her own, she would need to teach differently. The same methods could not be employed. She reflected that her traditional methods of teaching could be seen as harsh and impatient.

Sometimes, the craft week has also become a space for innovation, of coming together of crafts and the arts. From the very start, traditional Kalamkari artisans have joined us. They have a particular way of hosting it, where they draw many traditional shapes.

Once, a few years back, we had an artist come in who hosted it differently. The technical process of Kalamkari was faithfully followed. However, what was drawn was not controlled. The children could draw anything, animals, scenery, flowers.

This led to a mini revolution. Many more students got interested. We had about 150 pieces a day of Kalamkari being made. For the traditional artisan too, it was a new experience. It was an exposure for them to see the infusion of the arts into craft.

Creating a community by weaving relationships

Beyond this, the craft week has also become an avenue for the artisans to come together to weave a strong web of relationships. They often look forward to this time of the year, to be with each other. Many artisans also have wanted to learn from each other. Already being skilled in handicrafts, they do learn quickly and get a chance to enhance their skills.

Increasingly the artisans have demanded to create a dialogue space during the week, where they meet every alternate day. They use this space to share their personal journeys. They also share their difficulties, which are often understood better by people sharing similar journeys.

Over the last few years, they have also been talking about how to make their practices more sustainable. During one such dialogue, the palm leaf craftspeople, who have traditionally used tender leaves, after discussion, decided to use mature leaves instead. They went ahead with it, and even adapted their products accordingly.

The 9-10 days craft week culminates in a Crafts Mela. Here, the artisans showcase their crafts for sale, which is not open for bargains. With time, people have understood the process and respect it. The audience have come to cherish the crafts and the ones making them. This too is a dignifying experience for the artisans.

The mela is open to all townsfolk. Various community members and parents join in too. Some help in setting up the stalls. Others provide support by holding food stalls. It is also a time of sharing joy through songs and dance. The participants, both students and teachers, perform the Kaliyiyal and Kummi dances they learn during the craft week.

Prior to the mela day, the participating schools exhibit all the crafts they have made for everyone to see. Through this, the children look at each other’s crafts and get new ideas.

The mela is not limited to crafts. We also provide organic food. After intensely engaging for over a week, it becomes a joyful space. Here the participants make new relationships that have sustained over time.

The crafts as a space for continuous learning

I specifically remember one incident. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a dalit school from Coimbatore, who have been regularly participating, could not come to attend the craft week for five years. I happened to visit them.

A 15-years old child, who would have been 10 years old when he last attended the craft week, ran inside. He brought out an unfinished palm basket to show me. He shared how he has been waiting all these years to make the final rounds.

We contacted the palm weaver. The school invited him to do a workshop, where the child finally finished his basket. The child had waited for so long. In a world of consumerism, how do we look at this? For me, this shows how we have a lot to learn from children. They take their learning very seriously. Taking short cuts and being impatient is indeed a result of social conditioning.

Over the last 14 years, many schools and teachers have become co-holders and cofacilitators of this space. The crafts mela, as an idea, has also been taken up by the participants. Around 10 participating schools now do it in their own spaces too. The same artisans go there. This has become another support for their livelihoods.

Traditionally, women have used crafts and life skills to come together. They do things together. And in doing so, they celebrate female camaraderie. For instance, the village women gather to make brooms. This act of coming together offers them a chance to build relationships. These sustain them and help in sharing and resolving conflicts. They acknowledge the enabling properties of this camaraderie. Craft week is an attempt to make this spirit come alive. I hope many more such craft weeks flourish.