On 23 November, the team from Art1st joined us for an exclusive walkthrough with Paul Abraham at our archive in Mumbai. Paul introduced the participants to some of the best artworks in our collection from the genres of Mata-ni-Pachedi and Mithila painting. Art1st is an organisation that aims to bring Indian art into mainstream education. Their mission is to “develop learning environments that nurture and strengthen imagination, visual literacy, creative skills and cultural awareness of children and educators.” At our archive, Paul explained the iconography, the religious symbolism and the painstaking processes behind Mata-ni-Pachedi, which is practiced by chitrakars living primarily in Ahmedabad, and Mithila, a ritualistic painting native to the Madhubani district of Bihar. Both centre the worship of Shakti or the divine feminine.
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