The Kala Ashram in Adilabad town is now an annual fixture for students of the premier National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Hyderabad, as a batch of 15 of them has arrived here for a week-long study tour. The students, who are studying fashion communication course, would be divided into two groups to study bamboo craft of the Kolam Adivasis and the culture, costumes and jewellery design of the Raj Gonds in and around Adilabad.
The students are led by faculty member M.C. Mohan, who has been instrumental in bringing several batches of students to a backward district like Adilabad which is situated at the other end of the fashion spectrum. “Kala Ashram is quite relevant for our course as it is a repository of knowledge and artefacts related to tribes,” he said.
“The students were given orientation on documentation of their study for one whole week before they came here. They were told about the intricacies of conducting interviews and taking photographs, besides making them aware of secondary data culled from previous documents,” Mr. Mohan said.
The students would go back and make a presentation of their study in Adilabad, and evaluation would be done by a jury following which they would be given grades. “Based on this study, the students will bring out a coffee table book of pictures,” he added.
