producers - dhokara | aari | kantha | hand printing | embossed leather | stuffed toy hangings | jute slippers
Sasha works with nearly a hundred and fifty craft groups in West Bengal, Orissa, the North-East and Karnataka.
Many of these groups are cooperatives formed by craftspersons, and each group has an interesting story behind it. While these stories have a common thread of determination and courage running through them, they differ greatly depending on the location (urban/rural/tribal), craft (traditional/contemporary) and economic status of the craftspersons involved.
Some stories involve a group of women striving for economic independence in a male dominated world and others talk about a struggle to earn a living through a craft whose traditional market is slowly dwindling. There are stories of craft groups trying to understand their distant buyers and the new uses which are being found everyday for their products and to understand the new demands of quality, accuracy and design that these new users make on their products.
In this section we focus on a few of these groups and talk about how these
groups came into being and the factors which played a major role in the
shape they eventually took.
...usually men working on the ancient lost-wax process of nonferrous metal casting, making ritual objects mostly for tribal communities in the remoter parts of Eastern and Central India.
more...largely male dominated groups working with the traditional embroidery of the moghul courts.
more...women's groups from the eastern part of India working and training newer groups in the craft of joining layers of fine cotton and silk with fine running stitch embroidery.
morejute
slipper groups
...a new product inspires
new skills in young shoe makers.
more
...mens' groups working with traditional wooden blocks and the newer silk screens to print a wide range of old and new motifs on silk and cotton.
more...men and women are specially trained in this relatively new craft to emboss and hand color goat skin and then make them into bags and boxes.
more...mostly urban women learning this new craft and working successfully together to gain economic independence.
moreproducer groups | join the family