Neo-ChalChitra+ Warli Art - A creative experiment

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This project is a creative experiment that strives to generate awareness about different crafts in the coming years through the use of a bioscope – the once revolutionary, century old film projection technology that has remained in vestigial form in the folk tradition of the bioscopewallahs.

The bioscope, named as the Neo Chalchitra, is an automatic, sound synchronized, single view storyteller that tends to engage the viewer through an audio- visual narrative that will tell them about Warli art & folklore. The story being told in the Neo ChalChitra is inspired by a true incident in the life of Warli artist Jivya Soma Mashe. The character’s name – Jivo – is derived from Jivya, who was bereft of his mother at the age of eight. After his mother’s death, he stopped talking to people and communicated only through his paintings. I tried to imagine what he must have gone through, during that time and what inspired him to pick up the brush. In the story, Jivo is a brave and clever boy who sets out in the forest to look for his mother. He encounters and tackles several creatures of the forest and a tribal deity. He goes though pain and a deep sense of loss when he discovers that his mother is dead and imagines her as a star in the night sky. The story also talks about the lifestyle of the Warlis by taking the viewer through an eventful day in the life of a child from the tribe.

The encounters in the story are inspired by Warli folklore and take the viewer on a journey of love, attachment, loneliness, bravery, loss, pain and the following recovery.

The project was a collaboration of various disciplines namely graphic design, product design, sound design, and storytelling & poetry. It is an example of cohesion of Graphic Design and Indian tribal arts to communicate messages to an audience.