DEBORAH THIAGARAJAN

Deborah Thiagarajan is the Founder and President of Madras Craft Foundation (MCF), a non-profit organisation, whose goal is the preservation and promotion of the cultures of the people from South India. Deborah speaks to chennaibest.com about MCF, Dakshinachitra and traditional South Indian Architecture.

We set up Madras Craft Foundation in 1984. We set it up with the specific intention of starting a Museum, for the preservation of arts and crafts. At that point we thought we would have to do it in town. Mahabalipuram and Muthukadu seemed very far away then. So we were looking for land in the city, and we went to the Government for land. The land we have now is on long lease from the Tamil Nadu Government. It took us six years to get the land and finally they offered us the land outside and then we realised that it was really the best possible location for a centre like this.

I had not really planned the setting up of Madras Craft Foundation. I had been telling everyone that all the arts and crafts and architecture is disappearing, as India is going through a transition. My friends said, "You keep talking about it, why don’t you do it yourself?". The first thing we did was register this society. We pooled together Rs 30,000, and that started the progress of Dakshinachitra. In the first year, we did a lot of school heritage programmes. We ourselves went in and talked about culture and decided to do research on architecture. And we received a grant from INTACH (The Indian National Trust for Art and Culture Heritage) for research on performing arts in the Tirunelveli District. So we hired researchers and went into the District. And then we put up a major exhibition on Kerala and we raised money for that exhibition. That was our first experience in doing anything large which was public. When you see a full centre set up like any big business, you wonder where do they get all that money and how do they do it? But its like building a wall, bit by bit. Then we got a grant from the Ford Foundation for educational programmes and a grant from the Handicrafts office and we got small amounts of money from lots of people here and there. Even now, we would be growing much faster if we had more money. Because we know what we want to do. If we get the donations, we have a beautiful merchant house in Gulbarga, which we want to bring in. We are waiting for the funding.

I have a background in Anthropology. When I came here I worked for the Tamil Nadu Nutrition Project and CARE. For both these projects, I was in villages all the time.  I was in Karur, Pollachi... that part of Tamil Nadu. So I spent a lot of time with villagers in their homes, speaking to them about their problems. How do they feel about their arts? I saw a lot of craft skills, because, in the Coimbatore area many of the villages were weaving villages. And in the Karaikudi area, there were so many stone carvers. I saw all these skills and I saw the way people look at their culture. And I also saw that in the cities people did not appreciate their culture. As an outsider, I have the advantage of seeing things objectively. I don’t see things in boxes. When you look at things in boxes, you don’t see the totality of what you are seeing. You see it only in relationship to what you are and what you do. Also, I saw a gap between the countryside and the city even then. I am talking about 15 years ago. I saw that a lot of the culture is regional and it is caste-based. The other castes do not know anything about it. You might live 200 kms from a major art form and you have never witnessed it because it is not relevant to you or your community.

Now what’s happening is both arts and performing arts are going beyond caste barriers, so they are getting a wider audience.When it comes to art and crafts skills, some are beginning to die out, because it is not much appreciated. The craftsman and performing artists, they get dejected, and they say "why should I help my children learn these skill." If one full generation does not learn a crafts skill, that skill is dead. And that means it is very difficult to revive it again. So we thought it was important to give an impetus to them and recognition to the work they do. We also work a lot with women’s group. Groups that are engaged in making craft. Very often it might be people who have a tradition of some embroidery for themselves. Now it is time to see how they can market it as a product. We help them with marketing and design.

Our role is that of a catalyst for many different groups and we would be successful if we can help other groups. A lot of groups of coming are now as the number of visitors is getting much more. Dakshinachitra is like a craft market for these craft people to come and sell directly. Dakshinachitra is not only the bridge between rural and urban, but we are a bridge between the past, present and future. We are also working out programmes for contemporary arts. We are working out with Amethyst in the city, a special programme for designers, photography, graphics, media, art, sculpture etc. We are also working on a contemporary artists camp in December. So we are continuously growing, we feel we also have a role to play in contemporary art and culture.

We have done a lot of research. It took us six years to get the land and we used those six years completely for research. So, we have done few major researches. We sent teams and we have gone to the length and breadth of all these States. We have been visiting all the traditional homes. When you go into the traditional homes, you see the village layout, you see all the crafts and how people use space in their homes. You catch the performing arts, you capture their rituals… I think you have a pretty good sense of what’s happening in the countryside. We are going to do a house from Andhra. Most of the other houses, are houses we identified, purchased, dismantled and had it brought here. If we change it, we just change it.This house  from Andhra, we are actually going to construct it new and we are using all the local crafts people from the village. We are using the local products and the blacksmith, all the door work and the ironwork and the carpenters are from that village. So it is a living architecture.

Even when we reconstructed the other houses we brought crafts people from those villages. Because we cannot work with masons from Tamil Nadu to do a Kerala house or do a Karnataka or Andhra house. And the architect for the centre is Lawrie Baker, Lawrie Baker is not just a type of architecture, it’s a way of architecture. And one of the things he is insistent on is, that you empower the worker. We do not use contractors. We use workers, they form their team and they have a head of their own team. And that has worked very well for us. Because they are smart people, they know how to do it, I mean they don’t need someone who doesn’t know how to do it, telling them 'now you do this or that'. And when they are in charge, their quality becomes very high.

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