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Traditional Chikan Embroidery in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, North India
Tereza Kuldova Images taken during the author’s fieldwork in Lucknow (2011) These pictures show a system of production and its result: traditional handmade embroidery in North India. But who are the people involved in this system and how do the materials of production shape their relationships? What local … Continue reading
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Chikan embroiderd sari from 1948: a biography
Tereza Kuldova Looking at these pictures we see an older lady dressed in an embroidered sari. But what is her relationship to the sari? What can the sari tell us about her, about the society around her and about the … Continue reading
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Kathakali in a London school
Maruska Svasek In November 2011, a select group of pupils from Wanstead High School sat down on the floor of one of the school’s classrooms as Kalamandalam Vijayakumar (Vijaya), a Kathakali actor of Indian origins, laid out different parts of … Continue reading
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Tagged aspirations, belonging, collaboration, communication, community, costume, genius, heritage, Kathakali, material culture, mediation, memories, migration, objects, preservation, self-reflective, tradition, transcultural, transforming
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Leaves and Weaves: The Trajectory of the Nagarathar Basket
Kala Shreen A basket is a mundane item that I use to carry things when I go grocery shopping or for a picnic or take my lunch to work. Is it? How does something as common as a basket become … Continue reading
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Tagged activism, appropriation, basket, community, consumption, craft, eco-friendly, gift, globalisation, India, mundane, production, recontextualising, religion, ritual, sacred, silver, souvenir, tourism, transforming
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An African Jesus
Rhoda Woets This painting might come across as an interpretation of what an African chief looks like. But it is not. What is it then? The painter depicted Jesus Christ here as part of a series of the Stations of … Continue reading
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Tagged Africa, heritage, identity, indigenous, interculturation, painting, religion, tradition
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Lines and Dots: Designs of Tamilnadu
Kala Shreen What does the drawing of lines and dots (called kolam) mean to its creator? Does it have a sacred value or is it decorative art? What are some of its changing modes and contexts of production?
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Tagged agency, ceremony, community, competition, decorative, diaspora, ethnicity, evil, India, innovation, museums, ritual, sacred, womanhood
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Law Poles
Øivind Fuglerud ‘Law Poles’, or thuuth thaa’-munth in the Wik Aboriginal language of north Australia, is an art work by Ron Yunkaporta. In the form seen on this picture it was exhibited as part of the exhibition Border Zones at … Continue reading
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Tagged anthropology, art vs. artefact, Australia, border zone, danger, ethnography, museum, sacred
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The Pulpit: media and religion in Ghana
Rhoda Woets This picture does not show a church, nor a dark night club or an art installation that mocks Christianity. I took this picture in the commercial TV3 studio in central Accra on the set of a popular reality … Continue reading
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Tagged adaptation, Africa, appropriation, Christianity, consumption, dichotomy, entertainment, Ghana, media, religion, television, transforming
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Fantasy coffins in Ghana and abroad
Rhoda Woets What is this? Is this an object at a pop-art exhibition? Or maybe a big toy-truck? It is neither. The picture shows a coffin at a funeral in Ghana’s capital city Accra. The Bedford truck coffin in this … Continue reading
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Tagged Africa, art, ceremony, circulation, coffin, craft, funeral, identity, museum
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