Bhubaneswar :Odisha Craft Odyssey (OCO) launched Chandua: Canopies of Labour, a bilingual publication documenting Odisha’s appliqué traditions and the communities, knowledge and labour that sustain them, during the valedictory session of the OCO Symposium 2026, Mapping Transitions: Art, Craft, and the Ethnographic Turn, held at the Odisha Research Centre (ORC) Auditorium, Bhubaneswar.

The publication was unveiled in the presence of Shri Vishal Kumar Dev, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Energy and E&IT Departments, Government of Odisha, as Chief Guest, and Shri Rajeev Sethi, Indian Designer & Scenographer and Padma Bhushan Awardee, as Guest of Honour. The launch marked the culmination of the day-long symposium, which brought together artists, researchers, designers, cultural practitioners and institutional voices to examine the evolving relationship between art, craft and ethnographic practice.

Published by Odisha Craft Odyssey, Chandua: Canopies of Labour brings together fieldwork, archival research, visual documentation and artisanal biographies to examine Odisha’s appliqué traditions beyond the finished craft object. The publication documents the terminology, materials, techniques, cultural contexts and changing practices associated with appliqué, while placing the experiences and knowledge of its makers at the centre of the narrative.

The 2026 edition is published in English and Odia and is edited by Premjish Achari and Sibdas Sengupta. The research and documentation were undertaken through the OCO Fellowship Programme 2025–26, with Madhulika S. Naidu as Research Fellow and Raj Maurya as Archivist Fellow. Their work brings together field research and archival material to examine the transmission of craft knowledge, the evolution of techniques and practices, and the changing contexts in which the tradition continues to be practised.

The publication is the outcome of nine months of intensive research across 45 craft clusters, combining field-based research, archival material, visual documentation and accounts of artisans. The research records not only the forms and techniques associated with appliqué, but also the knowledge, working processes and lived experiences that have sustained the tradition.