Study Tour to Honnavar
Study Tour to Honnavar in Uttara Kannada Voicing Cultural Memories was an environmental, cultural, and design-based lab in which the students explored the role of the indigenous knowledge systems and examined the place of folklore and alternative medicinal traditions in our society.
The field visits to exhibitions, museums, and a study tour to Honnavar in Uttara Kannada Region provided the impetus for learning and working with a strong sense of commitment, moral and ethical responsibility of a researcher and strong sensitivity towards members of the concerned communities. This experiential learning helped the students understand people and their environment’ and how these indigenous communities create and pass on their shared sense of beauty, identity and values. We are grateful to the contribution, effort, and time provided by Dr Naik family from Folklore Research Center who have been researching the tribal belt in Honnavar for the last 30 years.
The lab started with discussions to understand the relationship between people and environment, cultural memory, language, identify folk traditions. They interacted and interviewed various crafts communities from all over India at folk/ craft exhibitions to understand the cultural products, transfer of cultural products, and its future. The students visited the museums like Janapada loka to understand the representation and dissemination of traditional knowledge systems. They recognized the need to transmit the knowledge of traditional culture to younger generations; they reviewed the existing museums for the lack of communication, design, and use of technologies that are familiar to audiences and methodologies and technologies to create to generate new audiences.
Uttar Kannada Locator Map.
The students went on a three-day study tour to the tribal belt in Honnavar in Uttara Kannada region. The focus was to study the lifestyles, customs, festivals, their arts and craft practices, and the changes that have come with the changing times. Some of the tribes that the students interacted were the Halakki, Gamokkalu community, Siddis and the Gondas. The immersion that the students experienced for the three days helped them understand the value of indigenous knowledge systems and the role of culture in identity building. Some of the main themes, which they wanted to share with their peers, were Individual and community, self-sustainable lifestyles, arts and crafts, identity of a tribal community, traditional medicinal plants, and its connection to food and everyday living. The final presentation was a class exhibition of their learning; it included a document as a book, live demonstration, and booklet of recipes of herbal traditional drinks for their peer groups to build awareness and appreciation. Multimedia presentations on the importance and need for sustainable lifestyles and an interrogation of faculty and students on questions like - Who is a tribal? What is development? What is our role as urban citizens? This is all part of coursework at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology
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