Tracing Chandua: A Journey Through Craft, Community, and Fellowship

Every craft carries what meets beyond the eye, of the hands that shape it, the communities that sustain it, and the traditions that evolve across generations. As we document these journeys, it becomes important to move across mere observations. One must also enquire into the time, collaboration, and practices that keeps the craft alive.

Over the past year, Odisha Craft Odyssey’s(OCO) Chandua Appliqué Programme has embraced this journey, bringing together scholars from various backgrounds to explore Chandua through shared inquiry and field engagement. As this phase draws to a close, we reflect on the journey so far and look ahead to the publication of Chandua and the conversations it hopes to inspire.

The Journey Begins

The 2025-26 Chandua Appliqué Residency and Fellowship were conceived as complementary programmes, each contributing to a different aspect of researching the craft. While the Residency Programme offered an immersive space for exploration and dialogue, the Fellowship extended this learning into fieldwork and documentation, designing a craft research fellowship which encourages sustained inquiry. Together, we created a framework where observations turned into deeper questions, and research, unfolding through engagement with the craft and its practitioners.

The endeavour was carried forth using an interdisciplinary approach. By bringing in researchers, artists, photographers, architects, filmmakers, and designers, each member contributed a unique lens of seeing and documenting Chandua. The Programme encouraged participants to engage with it as a living tradition that is shaped by ritual, material knowledge, labour, and community. Research, therefore, culminated beyond documenting finished artefacts. It emerged through conversations in artisan homes and workshops, observations, temple visits (Chandua’s strong alignment with the Jagannath culture), oral histories, photography and sketching. This approach not only allowed us to understand the craft through a visual language, but through people, places, and practices that have shaped it. The Residency initiated these conversations while the Fellowship sustained them, building a richer narrative of Odisha appliqué craft. 

As the Fellowship reaches its conclusion, our journey enters its next phase with the forthcoming publication Chandua, scheduled for release in August 2026. The conversation henceforth, will continue at the OCO Symposium in September 2026, where we reflect on Chandua appliqué and the wider possibilities of craft documentation and collaborative knowledge-making.

OCO’s Vision for Craft Research

Over the years, Odisha Craft Odyssey has evolved beyond documenting crafts into a growing platform for interdisciplinary research and collaboration. Through its Residency and Fellowship programmes, OCO brings together researchers, artists, filmmakers, photographers, and cultural practitioners to engage with Odisha’s diverse craft traditions. By encouraging multiple perspectives to converge around a shared subject, the programme fosters new ways of understanding craft as a living cultural practice. 

Why Chandua

For centuries, Chandua craft has occupied a unique place in Odisha’s cultural landscape. Even though it is widely recognised today through the vibrant appliqué traditions of Pipili (town in Puri), the craft can be traced back to the rituals performed in Jagannath temple. Chandua’s intricate stitched canopies, ceremonial hangings, umbrellas, and chariot adornments once formed an integral part of temple worship and the annual Rath Yatra. Over time, these textiles found expression beyond sacred spaces, evolving into contemporary craft and design while continuing to retain their cultural significance.

This journey from a sacred tradition to a living craft practice, inspires an inquiry into its craft and craftsmanship hence, becoming the focus of OCO’s second chapter. More than documenting the finished object, the programme sought to understand the people, knowledge systems, and histories that sustain it. The research therefore explored Chandua through its construction techniques, design vocabulary and motifs, regional craft clusters, artisan biographies, and the ways in which the craft continues to respond to changing cultural contexts.

By choosing Chandua, OCO approached the craft as an evolving cultural practice that continues to be shaped by ritual, community, craftsmanship, and innovation across generations. This interdisciplinary approach has allowed us to build a nuanced narrative that extends beyond documentation, revealing the stories that lie within every stitched surface.

A Year in Motion

The Chandua Residency and Fellowship unfolded over the course of one year, with each phase building upon the last.

Take a look at our Programme’s timeline:

Time Period	Activity	Description
July 2025	Residency Open Call	OCO announced the second edition of its craft residency, inviting researchers, artists, designers, photographers, writers, and cultural practitioners.
2025	Residency Field Engagement	Selected participants traveled across Odisha as part of the craft residency, engaging with artisan communities, workshops, temples, archives, and craft clusters.
2025-26	Fellowship Research	Building on the Residency, the Fellowship extended the research through fieldwork and documentation.
July 2026	Research and Publication Preparation	As the Fellowship concluded, the data collected were brought together through editing, review, and publication design.
August 2026	Publication Launch: Chandua	The year-long research journey turned into a publication, developed during the Residency and Fellowship.
September 2026	OCO Symposium	The conversation continues through the symposium to discuss the larger questions surrounding craft, documentation, and knowledge sharing.

The Next Chapter

The Chandua Residency and Fellowship represent an important milestone in OCO’s larger vision of documenting Odisha's living craft traditions. As the second edition of the programme draws to a close, this journey lays the foundation for the third chapter, which will turn its attention to Dhokra, continuing OCO's commitment to research-led documentation and engagement with Odisha's craft communities.

Continuing the Conversation

While the fieldwork concludes, the conversation continues. The forthcoming publication, Chandua, scheduled for release in August 2026, brings together the collective research, documentation, and reflections developed throughout the Residency and Fellowship. This will be followed by the OCO Symposium in September 2026, where artisans, researchers, and scholars will gather to exchange ideas on Chandua appliqué and the wider questions of craft, documentation, and cultural continuity. 

We invite you to join us as these conversations unfold and build on the next chapter of Odisha Craft Odyssey's journey.