Craft Stories Under the Mango Tree
a curated festival that celebrates hand crafted living heritage and showcases Indian crafts & folk arts, both tangible and intangible, through a journey of multifaceted programmes featuring established & emerging artisans, craft- designers, scholars & galleries. It was launched in 2019 in Jaipur alongside the Jaipur Literature Festival.
The Festival
Crafts and Folk Arts represent cultural heritage enterprises which sustain communities by igniting innovation, promoting economic resilience, transmitting individual & group identity, and fostering the transmission of knowledge. History of common people often lacks chronicles or bardic literature to represent their existence in the past.
These narratives take many forms in traditional cultures. The personal stories and narrations of communities and their interaction with other communities can be found in diverse mediums. These could be woven, stitched, painted, That these could be portrayed it creating rhythm with folk instruments, the intangible heritage in these folk traditions is deeply connected to the crafts.
Craft Stories Under the Mango Tree narrates unforgettable stories—stories of artisans and their innovations, diverse cultural identities and time honoured knowledge, which together illuminate traditions and trends of Indian Crafts.
Festival Objectives
CELEBRATE: Celebrate and value the authenticity and workmanship of the ‘handmade’.
COLLABORATE: Collaborate with diverse stakeholders who play a significant role in preserving folk traditions.
CONVERSE: Converse about varied aspects of traditional crafts with a focus on its relevance in the contemporary design sector.
CONNECT: Connect exemplary practitioners of diverse traditions from communities across the world.
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Craft Stories Under the Mango Tree spreads its branches into nine areas
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Spotlight Craft
Connecting history with living craft traditions through thematic exhibitions.
In Living Craft Traditions, artistic expressions portraying the celebration of life continue to be found in objects across mediums. The seminal exhibition, through research, explores the historical context of these traditions and connects them to the living traditions with a display of physical examples of the selected craft-form. -
Crafted Fashion
A unique fashion show showcasing artisans crafting haute couture.
A unique fashion show dedicated to portraying ‘crafts in fashion’. While it honours designers working with craft traditions, the show empowers artisans by giving them an opportunity to perceive their role as ‘design innovators’ and ‘entrepreneurs’ and walk the ramp with their own creations.
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Craft Bioscope
Real to reel representation of craft traditions and artisans.
A curated film festival, which celebrates the diversity of craft traditions and traditional arts through moving images. Extraordinary hand skills, the lives and aspirations of artisans, and ancient knowledge will be taken from the confines of their origins on to the big screen.
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Craft Speak
Discussions/Conferences on key challenges concerning the craft industry.
The Festival features a series of dialogue or and discussion sessions with leading National & International voices from the worlds of craft, design, art, architecture and fashion to explore the evolving role of craft in current times. The Craft Dialogues series will be an open forum that brings together artisans, curators, designers, patrons, and professionals within the crafts sector.
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Craft Manch
Performances illustrating the inter-dependence between crafts, folk theatre and music.
Traditional performing arts from time immemorial have had a symbiotic relationship with craft practices. Different regions across India evolved their own indigenous crafts to create theatre and dance accessories. The form and function of these objects conformed with basic principles enunciated in the Natyashastra, and were accordingly kept light in weight. Folk paintings, masks, puppets costumes, musical instruments, etc remain a significant part of folk and traditional performing arts of our country.
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Craft Souk
A curated bazzar offering a mélange of handcrafted products with a blend of comtemporay design.
A bazzar with underlying substance; it will focus on contemporary applications of age-old Indian craft and culture, product diversification of crafts redefined through design, and place craft applications in the luxury segment with participation by all stake-holders. A showcase of exceptional craftsmanship and creativity blending urban tastes and cultural aesthetics.
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Craft Karkhana
Experiential learning about craft processes through varied mediums.
Through this significant branch, the festival presents unique workshops and demonstrations by artists from across the country in varied mediums. A path breaking workshop is - a unique techno-craft amalgamation where digital interfaced media becomes a means to take a participative journey through craft awareness to achieve an end.
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Crafted Spaces
Exploring the tangible and intangible core concepts through space-making crafts.
Both the tangible and intangible core concepts related to space making crafts will be explored through design based exhibitions. Crafted spaces deals with those crafts that can be defined as directly or indirectly related to space making such as the making and embellishing of architectural elements and interior design.
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Craft Journeys
Cultural tourism offering experiential awareness of diverse craft traditions
Specially designed Study Tours where reputed experts in the relevant field are invited to lead the group to a selected craft site. The visited craft practice is placed in the appropriate cultural context to enable the group to get a deeper insight of its relevance as a living tradition.