An unusual collaboration between indigenous Warli artists, a writer-gardener and book artisans, this book is a celebration of the miracle that is the seed and its place in our lives and cultures. Read on for an account of its evolution, and how it came to take its imaginative final shape, a combination of four book forms—each of them reflecting a particular aspect of the cosmos contained in a seed. ...
By Gita Wolf
The connection of skill and labour to art making has always interested us. We’re curious not only about the aesthetic and philosophical aspects of traditional art, but equally in its connection to artisanal practices, the craft that goes into giving it a physical form. In the case of Mata-Ni-Pachedi, this involves painting, block-printing and dyeing techniques which are painstaking, requiring skill and experience. This kind of artisanal knowledge is profound and priceless, but it is not valued highly, and seen more as a sequence of repetitive tasks learned through apprenticeship. Instead of holding artisanal practices against the mirror of industrial manufacture — or seeing them as distinct from art-making — we’d like to connect them intrinsically to the creative process....
By Arun Wolf
What is remarkable to me about many Tara projects is the spirit of collaboration that lies behind them. I think this commitment to genuine dialogue finds a way of seeping through into the pages of the books, but it’s perhaps not always obviously tangible....
By Maguma
Spanish artist Maguma reinterprets a classic tale of greed and need, by the Grimm brothers, for contemporary readers. The story opens out into two parallel visual narratives — one set in times past and the other rooted in a dystopian present. As possessions and fortunes are rapidly exchanged, who wins and who loses? And what exactly does winning and losing entail?...
By Gita Wolf
What potential does art offer as healing in the time of a pandemic? As we all emerge slowly from a year filled with illness, death, and despair, we wanted to look forward to better times by recollecting a myth that’s curiously comforting. There is a belief amongst the indigenous Rathwa tribe from Gujarat that creating a particular painting—called Pithora—banishes adversity and brings about a change in fortune....
Gita Wolf interviews Marion Bataille
There is nothing we enjoy more than playing with the form of the book, and meeting the French artist Marion Bataille was a revelation. Marion performs an incredible feat – she pushes the borders of bookmaking beyond text and illustration....
Nia Murphy & Maegan Dobson interview Anushka Ravishankar
More than 20 years after the publication of her first book, India’s acclaimed nonsense poet Anushka Ravishankar looks back at the collaborative process that led to the creation of her first few picture books for children....
