Craft & Season

India's craft sector occupies a viable socio-economic space within the country's developmental framework and possesses an enormous potential for employment generation, growth and wealth creation. The sector has the potential of stemming the rural to urban migration with a potential of creating a rural ecosystem of self sustainable economy. The craft sector in India is the second largest employment generator in India after agriculture. India being a tropical country offers a diverse range of resources spread across the country. Its climate, biodiversity and multiple cultural practices varies across the nation from east to west, north to south. Various crafts and craft techniques differ from one another and are informed by the different cultures, community and environment, making each craft unique to its region and people associated to it. Craft creation process undertakes use of simple tools and the raw materials available in the environment nearby. There are a number of concerns in the attempt to organise the sector for a 360 degree round development, from improving different areas concerning the craft's value chain to the craftsmen’s socio-economic condition.

One such concern is the craft production being seasonal and irregular in nature rendering the craftsmen out of work for a certain time being. The production being seasonal can owe to seasonality of the raw materials used, seasonality of the demand of the craft(festivals and ritualistic) or the reliance of the production process on certain feasible climatic conditions. The crafts production, under a status study of Tribal Handicraft conducted in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Chhattisgarh, is published to be seasonal and irregular in nature, thereby rendering an unsteady market for the same (Socio-economic and educational development society - SEEDS). Another case study of Burdwan District, West Bengal, India, on Dhokra Artisans, lists off-season of the craft production as a problem faced by the

craftsmen as they become workless during such periods. (IJCRAR, Socio-economic status of Dokra Artisans, Raj Kumar Samanta). Additionally, the wage that a craft artisan earns is insufficient, even the highest wages are relatively lower than those others in agriculture or other non-firm activities. The combination of low wages and insufficient regular work tends to exacerbate poverty among craft artisans.(International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (IJCRT, SUBHAMOY BANIK)

This project aims at having a system understanding and applying design thinking for creating a social innovation model for the seasonal crafts community to facilitate empowerment within the community taking into account a wider aspect of the craft’s significance in the world today. In particular, the project aims at creating a strong identity for such practices and production processes which more than being consumerism-centric is rather nature-centric in assembling out products, while also creating a platform for the community to boost their economic condition due to the yearly halt by creating opportunities of increased connectivity to a larger audience through channels of teaching, skill sharing, exhibiting and making sales. Keeping into account the insight from the life of the community, the practice method and the craft’s material value as a cultural exhibit, the project is formed to benefit from having included a wider perspective of creating a new framework which has a base on system oriented design by having mapped and structured datas in line and designing a series of models of re-invention of the communities identity and relevance. The project aims to benefit the seasonal crafts community as well learn from them by extending the design approach of inclusion of the community in the design solution and creating an ecology of self-sustainability within them.