Samanyara Basavakalyana

The Living Archive of Commoner's Stories from Basavakalyan

(work in progress)

LIVING ARCHIVE OF BASAVAKALYAN

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“His-stories are in their best form when they are told by him”

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."

~Atticus Finch, To kill a mockingbird

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STORY ARCHIVE

OBJECT LIBRARY

OBJECT LIBRARY

While museums are stories of the past, objects are museums of the present. One should ask, while we are so interested in historical museums, why aren't we building museums of the present?

~ Anchita Kaul

Objects around us when looked closely can be disintegrated into a million stories. Be it a rubber tube, a plastic water bottle or a bolt from a shipyard. An object speaks about its creators, its purpose, material, what it has been meant to be used for and what was eventually used for. Its shape and condition tells us about time. Objects that are found on the banks of rivers and a kitchen have stories too. Stories of common people, stories of everyday people who are writing the history of a place. Objects are time capsules.

NOTE CAM

Each of these photos have been taken from the field during field work. Documentation process involved using this useful tool which captures details along with the picture and allows one to write a note.

PHOTOS FROM THE FIELD

ABOUT THE PROJECT

“Aloo lelo, gajar lelo, tarkari, tarkari, tarkari lelo” “dus ke do, dus ke do, dus ke do, dus ke do”, where do we get to here these today? Was one of the discussions with Dr.shatling mathpati ji in Basavakalyan. The sounds of voices of people disappear sometimes. New dialects emerge in the language, lifestyle of people changes, they leave some voices behind, they leave out a story with them. Due to various reasons like migration, change in environment, politics, development, and some voices of people, we are talking about the audible sounds, get affected. Reasons being which causes the voices to transform into another. Stories of these people change along with them. The lost voice is part of history now

Where does history begin then ? one frequently occurring question. Though it is subjective, it can be relevant for a number of situations by changing its definition in terms of number of years. 100yrs before today is history as well as the minute which just passed is also a part of history. And the day we are living in the will is also a part of history and will also attain a stage when it will be referred to as how we refer to Egyptians.” hey you know in 2022, people went to mars”. It's inevitable to escape that moment from the future. Everything that we have as news today will be part of so-called “history”. Today's news is tomorrow's history.

“To understand a leader, talk to his people”, said my grandfather. Maybe it is relevant to any event that occurs. Talk to the people who were involved, talk to the people who participated and talk to the ones who got affected by it. Makes me think about what would world war 1 would sound like if heard from a soldier’s perspective? People…common people are the ones who are affected and experienced. Common people’s stories add value to the event, their perspectives open up a wide range of thoughts, and their voice talks about emotions, journeys and lived experiences...

“Samanya Basavakalyana” is a Living archive of Stories told by the common people of basavakalyan. It is a system which incorporates volunteering teams from the town. Students from various institutes can participate in the project to contribute to the Archive. The Archiving project involves archiving drives which can take place every month, based on interest of institutes and students, participation of volunteers from elsewhere.

Started off as A.Shree Tej's undergraduate thesis project it was maintained by Living Labs Newrork(LLN) in collaboration with an NGO, Team YUVAA in Bidar. The project's system was developed working closely with Dodda-Appa-Appa B.ed College of education in Basavakalyan.

(the original archive is under maintenance)