I have spent some time exploring the grounds at the Kendra this week. Scattered amongst the landscaped gardens here are various installations created by previous artists.
Wednesday, I went to the Indira Ghandi Centre for the Arts to see the City of Djinns. A really interesting mix of music and story telling, it follows the story of one mans journey through both the historical, political and spiritual landscape of India.
This last week has been filled with wedding fever here at Sanskriti.
The owner, Mr O P Jain, has two of his grandchildren getting married this month and this week marks some of the first events of the wedding ceremonies.
Indian weddings are usually a big deal but here at Sanskriti it has been done on a grand scale. The first event was held last night, a classical Indian concert held in the amphitheatre.
Artists and craftspeople had spent the past two weeks painstakingly preparing the venue, intricate designs were painted on carefully prepared clay floors (the clay is mixed with cow dung to help deter mosquito’s and applied by hand), traditional orange garlands of flowers covered every gate and pillar and vast bags of pink rose petals were scattered into the water, hundreds of traditional small clay lanterns were suspended between pillars to create curtains of ambient lighting. It was an amazing spectacle. This next week will see further ceremonies which will culminate next week with a dance and music performance by South Indian dancers and musicians here at the Kendra.
We also visited the Prajapat community.
There are about 300 working potters on the site, spread over several acres.
Everywhere you look there are terracotta water vessels and ceramic containers including small cups, money boxes and flowerpots, even the walls of the houses are constructed out of pots!!
Most of the people that live here have migrated through necessity to the city in order to improve their living standards. Its extremely hot and dusty. We create quite a stir, foreigners arriving with our cameras!
The ceramic vessels are still hand made but are identical in design, mass produced for the terracotta markets here in India.
They are still highly skilled but lack some of the beauty and refinement of the work we had seen earlier at Giri Raj Prasad's studio, these people have to produce a lot of pieces each day in order to make enough money to survive.
These vessels are the everyday utilitarian objects of India, they probably sell for a few rupees each.
It was an early start this morning, 7am!
We went to visit the Prajapat Colony in Uttam Nagar, a ceramic community just on the outskirts of Delhi. Even with our guide and experienced taxi driver we had considerable difficulty negotiating the back streets and winding roads (when I say roads they are more like dirt tracks!)
Cows, pigs, dogs and the odd goat are just a few of the traffic hazards for the experienced driver here in India! Getting from one place to another is never a dull experience!
I went with a lady based in Delhi called Minhazz, a contact from an American lady here on a Fulbright scholarship here at the Kendra.
Minhazz supports Indian artists, particularly those who have no formal arts training, she is very much an advocate for Outsider Artists. She spends much of her time supporting local artists and creating connections between Indian artists and artists from other countries, to enrich all artists experience through cross cultural engagement.
She first took us to meet a potter who has a studio on the outskirts of the ceramic colony.
His name is Giri Raj Prasad , originally from Ragisthan he migrated to Delhi in search of work, he has slowly built up a studio and now makes the most beautiful crafted, highly skilled ceramic work.
Working in traditional terracotta he uses an electric wheel rather than the traditional kick wheel often seen here, I am surrounded by original vessels of varying scales and form.
Huge 10ft pieces line the back walls. This is both his studio and his home.
His passion for his work is tangible, and whilst many potters here in India struggle to make a living from their work he seems to be doing relatively well with the support and help of people like Minhazz.
Up some stairs we make our way to his roof. A tall brick kiln emerges from his flat roof, there are also large neat piles of cow dung, used as fuel to fire his kiln.
The kiln is a huge chimney structure, firings are done on average once every three months when there is enough work to fill it.
Most of his work is burnished to produce a shiny surface before firing, the pots emerge from the kiln part blackened by sawdust, a beautiful sheen on the surface, each piece is different and unique due to the firing, touched by the flames and the kiln differently.
Just before we leave we exchange business cards!
He looks intrigued and slightly bemused by the image of my ceramic installation work on the front of my card! I explain a little about my work and as we stand there and chat with the help of Minhazz, he suddenly asks us to stay a little longer to watch him work.
We are delighted, as is he!
He clearly enjoys visitors to his studio and I feel very lucky to be there to watch him.
So we stay a little longer and watch him work …
Today I started to explore the museums here at Sanskriti, I am particularly interested in the Museum of Everyday Art and Museum of Indian Terracotta.
The South Indian (Tamil Nadu) terracotta horses make for an impressive spectacle lining the walkways and grounds here at the Kendra, some of them standing over 4 metres high. They remind me of the images I have seen of the terracotta armies in China. Throughout the grounds there lie terracotta animals, figures, and Hindu iconography.
Ceramics has a long tradition here, in fact it has more people working in clay here than anywhere else in the world, apparently over a million people! Traditional ceramic techniques pass down from generation to generation within family groups and small communities, however their skills and work is often not given the status it deserves within India itself, largely due to their low caste in Indian society.
I also went to look at the Museum of Everyday Art, it houses a range of everyday objects including regional icons, shrines, ritual accessories, lamps, womens toiletries, betel boxes, scales and measures, and kitchen accessories to just name but a few.
I am particularly interested in some of the ornate locks and womens combs housed in the museum.
Tomorrow I am going to a ceramic community just on the outskirts of Delhi, a place called Uttam Nagar.
