Nobina Gupta

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will create a series of narratives of the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW) area titled Jol-a-bhumi r Golpo Katha / Stories of the Wetland by the children of the community who inhabit this space. Children will be taught to use emergent digital technologies and virtual methods of storytelling to document, report and disseminate the story of the EKW and its present crisis to a larger audience. This is a collaboration with the People’s Archive of Rural India - PARI. PARI is both a living journal and an online archive that records and brings to national focus the labour, livelihoods, languages, arts, crafts, histories and cultures of rural India. It makes visible the millions of stories that would otherwise remain largely unseen in mainstream media. Nobina Gupta is the Principal Investigator for this project. 

 

Nobina Gupta is an artist, curator and founder-director of Disappearing Dialogues Collective (dD). She will collaborate on this project with Saptarshi Mitra, who is a partner with dD. He is also an architect whose interest lies in inclusive design, art and culture-based education and community-based development. Ever since 2016, dD has been working with the peri-urban community children of EKW, a protected wetland under the Ramsar convention, on the eastern fringes of Kolkata, West Bengal. Specifically working with two government schools in the area - the Bamanghata High School and the Kheadaha High School – they have used art practice as a methodology of engagement to disseminate the realities of the place to a wider section of society. Thus Nobina is best placed to be the Principal Investigator of this Foundation project of IFA. 

 

The EKW are both natural and man-made, and is sustained by collective practices of the community who see wastewater as a nutrient. The eco-system is one of co-dependency and grounded practice which highlights the valuable linkages between nature, culture and economy. It is these practices that has created a symbiotic existence with the city of Kolkata. However, a lack of understanding of this dependence, development pressure and environmental threats render this landscape fragile, susceptible and vulnerable. Added to this, discontent and disappearing practices could potentially disrupt the fine balance between EKW and Kolkata that would be impossible to re-establish again.

 

For this project, the children and youth of the EKW community will be divided into three groups – as researchers, journalists, and illustrators. The researchers form the backbone of the archiving process and the project itself. They will gather interesting snippets of stories, happenings and practices that they observe in their surroundings. They will then pass on this information to the journalists, who will develop narratives that are thematic of the EKW realities, which will then be converted into community-based podcasts. The journalists will receive training and guidance on how to structure and frame themes, interview speakers etc that will make for good quality productions. Based on material provided by the researchers, the illustrators will portray in innovative ways the unique spatial, cultural, ecological realities of EKW and its people. These illustrations will take multiple forms such as paintings, photo-stories, comics, etc.

 

Regular activities including workshops will be implemented by bringing in creative professionals for expert guidance. All the varieties of outcomes that will emerge, will then be integrated in the PARI archive. Based on PARI’s requirements, all the material will either be uploaded at regular intervals or at the end of the project. In addition to the above, two mid-term virtual exchange sessions will be organised, one for each school, where participants will engage with another community that is similarly under the threat of extinction. The objective of these sessions is to build solidarities and networks with other endangered communities. One national webinar will also be organised to share the outcomes and learnings with a pan-national audience. In the light of Covid-19 and its limitations with regard to close physical interactions, on-ground activities will be supplemented with activities on virtual platforms.

 

Through this project it is hoped that the children and youth of the wetlands will not only become aware of their socio-spatial realities, but will also acquire knowledge from their community elders that is not usually available in their textbooks at school. They will put this knowledge to good use by creating artworks and podcasts using current innovative digital tools. This way the participants become ‘living archives’ themselves by internalising and retaining the knowledge they have acquired, alongside creating information that will reach a much larger audience around the world. PARI then becomes crucial not only as a national platform which can collate and archive these knowledge systems and traditional practices that are uploaded, but also provide the visibility for these marginalised voices, which might never be heard otherwise.

 

The outcome of the project will be the series of research and workshop based narratives that will take multiple forms such as podcasts, paintings, photo-stories, comics and so on. The deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the narratives, together with video recordings of the workshops. 

 

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and all funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with the Trustees.