Jharkhand is home to a number of living traditions like lost wax metal casting, scroll painting, cotton weaving, wood carving, and so on. Women painters from Ganju, Prajapati, Santal, Oraon, Munda and other communities still create Khovar (wedding) and Sohrai (harvest festival) murals, painting in mud on the mud walls of their homes. But the landscape of Jharkhand – dominated by river plains and hill tracts covered in sal jungle – and the communities that live in it, are under considerable stress from mineral extraction. The aim of this project was to learn more about how communities are responding to these pressures. Art, Craft, People and Place in Jharkhand was conducted in collaboration with the Sanskriti Museum and Art Gallery, Hazaribagh.

The South Asia Collection has an on-going association with the Sanskriti Museum and Art Gallery which enables us to work with artists and artisans whose works we have in the collection.