Next week, deep sea divers, fisherfolk, researchers and like-minded people from different walks of life, will gather at Auroville to discuss and innovate on solutions for a cleaner ocean.
The Ocean Festival is a collaboration between Pondicherry Tourism and Auroville to help bring awareness to the plight of the ocean. The mascot of the festival is the little handmade doll named Tsunamika, whom organisers describe as a living symbol of hope, that has now taken the form of an Ocean Goddess.
Tsunamika was born of the result of man’s response to natural calamity. Following the 2004 Tsunami, Uma Prajapati, the founder of Upasana Design Studio, started the Tsunamika project while working with 600 fisherfolk to create dolls to provide trauma counselling.
Since then, for the past 17 years, Uma has been the director of the Tsunamika Project.
Fisherfolk and community members who will be part of the festival | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
For the festival, she says, “We are keeping four core themes: art, activism, community and ocean. We have a lot of art and art installations using waste collected from the ocean.” She adds, “Involving the community to make the art ensure that it is not just one artist’s expression. It’s everybody touching the waste, which has been lying under the water for years, together.”
Delving deep
The festival will also feature divers and ocean experts, who will talk about what they see and how the sea has been changing before their eyes. We are also inviting PondyCAN [a people’s collective] who, in their 12 years of constant effort, finally brought a beach to Pondi.”
The Tsunamika doll | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Other features of the festival include workshops on upcycling, knowing your waste and community activities like beach cleaning, turtle walks and more.
For ways to support them she says: “We are running a pledge, if every person provides ₹50 to first support the clean drive [raised through] Tsunamika that would be a great move. The beautiful part of this project is that it is community funded. By asking people to make a small contribution, we are really democratising it.”
The Ocean Festival is happening on 12 July to 18 July 2022 at Bharat Niwas, Auroville. For details, visit tsunamika.org
