Dakshinachitra bridges the gap between rural and urban India
The HinduPublished : Dec 14, 2022 18:00 IST Dakshinachitra, meaning “Picture of the South”, is a unique cross-cultural museum located along the Bay of Bengal some 25 kilometres south of Chennai. In a decade when India was busy ushering in its neoliberal era, Dakshinachitra brought on board Lawrence Wilfred “Laurie” Baker, the renowned British-born Indian architect inspired by the Gandhian tenet that a house should be built with materials found within a radius of five kilometres. For instance, Tamil Nadu is represented by a Nattukottai Chettiyar home, a silk weaver’s house, agricultural house, Brahmin house, and potter’s house; Kerala by a Syrian Christian home, a Hindu house, and a distinctive house from Calicut; Karnataka by the Chikmagalur house and the Ilkal weaver’s house; and Andhra Pradesh by the Ikat house and the coastal Andhra house. There is a festival almost every month; we bring in artisans from different regions and they stay for 7-10 days, making and selling craft.” Additionally, Dakshinachitra offers certificate courses on folk arts like Thappattam, Oyilattam, Silambattam, and Karagattam from Tamil Nadu.
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