Bilingual publication brings together fieldwork, archival research and artisanal biographies to examine Chandua beyond the finished craft object
Bhubaneswar (Odisha Tazanews) :- Odisha Craft Odyssey (OCO), a collaborative initiative of the MGM Foundation and Bhubaneswar Experimental Art and Design Studio (BEADS), will launch Chandua: Canopies of Labour, a bilingual publication on Odisha’s living appliqué traditions, on Sunday, September 20, 2026, at the Odisha Research Centre (ORC) Auditorium, Samantapuri, Bhubaneswar. The launch, at 5:00 PM, forms the valedictory highlight of OCO’s maiden full-day symposium, Mapping Transitions: Art, Craft, and the Ethnographic Turn.
Chandua: Canopies of Labour is the outcome of a research-led engagement with Odisha’s Chandua traditions and the communities that sustain them. Looking beyond the finished object, it foregrounds craft as embodied knowledge and living testimony, tracing the labour, memory, history and cultural knowledge held within its making.
The 2026 edition is presented bilingually in English and Odia, edited by Premjish Achari and Sibdas Sengupta, with research and documentation by OCO Fellows Madhulika S. Naidu, Research Fellow, and Raj Maurya, Archivist Fellow. The book will be available for purchase at ₹6,500, inclusive of all taxes.
Structured around three panels — Art as Social Practice (Artists as Ethnographers: Reimagining Local Knowledge Systems), The Institutional Bridge (Institution Building between Art, Craft, and Anthropology), and Mapping Transitions (Art, Craft, and the Ethnographic Turn) — the symposium brings together artists, researchers, cultural practitioners and institutional voices to examine changing approaches to art, craft and ethnographic practice. Confirmed panellists include Jeebesh Bagchi of Raqs Media Collective; Prof. Bishnu Mohapatra, political scientist and poet; Richa Agarwal, CEO of Emami Art and Chairperson of Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC); Anupam Roy of The Panjeri Artists’ Union; Monisha Ahmed, co-founder of Ladakh Arts and Media Organisation (LAMO); and Jagannath Panda, noted Odia artist and sculptor. The symposium is planned as a yearly fixture alongside the programme’s book launch.
The unveiling will be followed by remarks from the Chief Guest and Guests of Honour, including noted designer and curator Rajeev Sethi who says in the book,“The canopy, therefore, is a product of cooperation before it becomes an object of commerce. At a moment when social and political discourse increasingly seeks to simplify communities, the Chandua offers a different narrative. Its survival depends not on isolation but on interdependence.”
