Non-tribals acquiring tribal art skill

Trainees at work:Learning Saura painting may help them enhance their scope of livelihood.

Some non-tribal women in Odisha have started learning tribal Saura paintings. Thirty girls from families displaced for the now-shelved mega steel project of Tata Steel in Ganjam district of Odisha are learning this art form.

The training is being given at the rehabilitation colony on the outskirts of Berhampur under a project named ‘Srujanika’ by Tata Steel. They would undergo training for two years. ‘World Act’, a social organisation involved in art and craft training and marketing, is managing the project and imparting training.

The first batch of this programme has started and more batches would be started later.

According to trainees like Sibani Patra, it is not difficult for them to pick up intricacies of Saura painting because they used to draw traditional Odia

jhoti at their homes during festivals since childhood. She and other trainees feel that they would try to innovate by adding up modern elements to attract the urban art lovers.

Manas Ranjan Nayak, one of the trainers, is hopeful that the girls would be able to produce marketable products within a year. They may use Saura paintings to produce marketable things of day to day use like decorative pieces, block printed fabric, greeting cards, folders, photo frames, bags, wall hangings and large paintings. They have already started transforming small stones into Saura painting artefacts.

Although said to be around 5,000 years old, Saura painting is still practiced in tribal villages in Rayagada, Gajapati, Ganjam and Koraput districts of Odisha.

These paintings include two dimensional unique motifs of humans, horse, elephant, sun, moon. The painting form is unique as they do not differentiate between male and female forms as in tribal community both have equal status.