Meena Vari and I co-taught Voicing Cultural Memories Class experience at Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology in Southern India. The class title was “Voicing Cultural Memories Environment Practices.”
In this environmental, cultural, and design-based lab Course: Voicing Cultural Memories, Environment & Practices, Meena and I explored the role of the folk arts in a culturally pluralistic society and the place of public folklore and alternative medicinal traditions. The class will create a forum to discuss diverse themes such as cultural products, the movement of cultural products and values. The course aims to familiarize students with the relationship between people and environment, cultural memory, language, identity, and expression in art/craft sustainability and biodiversity.
The fieldwork for the lab was located in Uttara Karnataka, India, and different folklore organizations in Karnataka. The methodology in this class is based on discussions/films/readings and field visits to folklore sights and documenting and interviews with Indigenous people of Karnataka.
The course outline was as follows:
- History of folk, traditional arts, and culture – Role of arts and place of folklore in a culturally pluralistic society.
- Craft and Sustainability – ways of life, livelihoods, historical experience and migrations
- Cultural memories and Identity -transmission, movements of cultural products and values
- Biodiversity and sustainable development
- What do we mean by ‘living human treasures.’
