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Pottery Craft
of Dharavi
2017
The Book
Craft documentation: Crafts of Mumbai
The intention of this research was to understand craft of pottery in an urban setting and how it can be sustained through design intervention. What we aimed to look at was the three pillars of sustainability—Planet, People, Profit. In between the magic of watching carefully created crafts from themselves with the heat of a kiln, this research was a peek into the lifestyles of Kumbhars in Dharavi, an understanding of how the craft production impacts the environment and society and uncovering of a significant question—is the craft being able to sustain itself in the age of ‘dying’ handicrafts?
About
Wrapped in years and years of history, handy works have been recovered by excavating old cities, giving hints about their continued craft from yug to yug. In Mumbai, pottery found its way through the migration of Kumbhars of Saurashtra, Gujarat to Bombay to the Mahim bay area around 1932, which later was given a name Khumbharwada, literally translating ‘Home of the Potter.’ Presently, pottery faces competition from high demand of iron, steel and copper materials.
NIFT keeps in touch with India’s rich cultural, handicraft and handloom heritage, develops and implements craft cluster initiatives towards the overall progress of craft, the cottage industry and vocational activities. The intention of the project is to involve NIFT’s creativity in the areas of design, technology, marketing and management along with external expertise, and synergize all developmental activities by various government and non-government agencies.
Credits
Role : Research, Content, Design
(This work was done during my Master's at NIFT)
Collaborators : Aiman Iqbal, Mahima, Shumayla Afaf, Tanya Mathew, Trina Biswas, Tejaswini Gowda, Zosangliani