Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) practices, such as craft, dance, musical performance, storytelling, and painting, give communities a sense of identity and belonging. The sale of products created by ICH practice can also create jobs and income. However, many communities in developing countries like India experience significant difficulty preventing the appropriation of their heritage by others, for example through mechanisation of production methods. Conventional intellectual property (IP) rights, such as copyright, patents and design protection, offer limited protection to the authors of original creations or new inventions that cannot easily be used to protect cultural expressions whose authors are unknown, and which have been passed down through the generations, changing and adapting to new contexts. This project engages with three Indian ICH practices - Baul and Fakiri music, Chau dance and Patachitra tradition to investigate how developing 'heritage-sensitive' IP protection strategies can give communities greater control over the commercialisation of their heritage while contributing to its safeguarding and on-going viability.
The project aims thereby to contribute to the sustainable development goals of Agenda 2030 by helping to build sustainable communities, protect and safeguard cultural heritage, enhance wellbeing, address income inequalities, promote economic empowerment (of women), and reduce poverty.
Dharmendra Sutradhar, 33, started making masks when he was 10 years old. Mask making is is a traditional craft for him and many other artists living in Charida village, Purulia. He makes traditional masks meant for Chau dance and several innovative masks based on varied themes. Dharmendra has made masks on literary works like Tasher Desh, religious masks like Pashupatinath, to name a few. He has taken part in almost all the major fairs and festivals in India.
Suman a resident of Daspur started painting Patachitra from 2004. He has learnt patachitra from Maina Chitrakar and Joydeb Chitrakar who are his teachers. He paints Bangla Pat, Santhal Pat, Kalighat Pat and paints diversified items like Saree, kurta, t-shirt, umbrella, kettle etc. He has travelled all over West Bengal, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Thane, Mysore, Punjab and Haryana. He has conducted workshops in Jorasanko, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Victoria Memorial and Indian Museum.
Girish Mandal also known as Girish Khyapa, is an eminent Baul singer from Bardhaman district in West Bengal. Along with singing, he plays various traditional instruments such as Dotara and Ektara. Other than performing across India, he has also performed internationally. He has performed for the government owned TV channel Doordarshan and also for the Bengali movie Tin Anka. Other than singing Baul songs, he also sings Shyama Sangeet or songs dedicated to Goddess Kali. Girish Khyapa hosts an Akhra at Joydev-Kenduli mela. He also performs outside West Bengal and even internationally. Among international performances, he has performed at the International De Folklore De Noyon Festival in France and Transform-Trondheim World Music Festival in Norway in 2017. He also participated in a cultural exchange program with Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in the United States and visited Washington D.C. as part of the initiative in 2018. There he had attended the Smithsonian Folklife Festival 2018 and performed at the Library of Congress and Freer Sackler Gallery.
Soniya Chitrakar is a young Patua of Naya in Pingla, bearing the tradition with high enthusiasm. She started learning the art of Patachitra during her childhood from her mother, renowned Patua Jaba Chitrakar. Sonia has participated in exhibitions and events across India. She had visited Germany in 2018 where she had also participated in a workshop. She was awarded by the Rabindra Bharati University and has won a State Award in 2017.
Mousumi is a leading woman Chau dancer, an art form native to Purulia in the state of West Bengal in India. By being the first woman to learn and perform Chau, a male bastion for ages, she is an inspiration for other girls learning the art. Born in Maldi village of Balarampur in Purulia, Mousumi started dancing Chau at the age of 10, learning the art from her father, Jagannath Choudhury, an accomplished Chau exponent. Mousumi is pursuing her Master in Arts post-graduation degree in Bengali from Sidhu Kanu University in Purulia. She works as a part time teacher at a local school and teaches Chau dance in her university. She has performed in Kolkata, Purulia and Jhargram and is scheduled to perform in Norway in September 2018.
Dr June Taboroff will be Evaluation and Economic Development Advisor to the project. She has a PhD in art and architectural history, studied has a degree in environmental economics, and has field experience of India and the south Asia region, including assessing culture projects for the EU, evaluating field heritage conservation projects for World Monument Fund, and developing a culture program for the Government of Denmark in Pakistan. Over the course of her career June Taboroff has worked on culture, tourism, and local economic development policy, programmes, evaluation, and training in over 65 countries for major international development institutions, including the World Bank, UNDP, Asian Development Bank, UNESCO and for agencies such as DFID/British Council, as well as Cultural Heritage without Borders, Heritage Lottery Fund and other bilateral and heritage organisations. She has been involved in the assessment and preparation of projects and activities focusing on handicraft development and performing arts in such countries as Madagascar, Macedonia, Egypt, Lebanon, and Mongolia.
Ananya Bhattacharya is Director and Vice President at banglanatak dot com ( www.banglanatak.com ) - a social enterprise working across India for fostering inclusive and sustainable development using culture based approaches. Ananya is an engineer from Jadavpur University (1989) and a Commonwealth Sccholar with Masters in Sustainable Development from Staffordshire University,UK. Ananya specializes in Communication for Development (C4D) and Culture and Development. Ananya is also a member of Executive Committee of ICOMOS, India. Ananya is a member of the Steering Committee of the ICH NGO Forum comprising of NGOs accredited to UNESCO 2003 ICH Convention Committee and also a member of the editorial board of Heritage Alive – an initiative to collect and disseminate good practices on safeguarding ICH and case studies highlighting ontribution of ICH to sustainable development. Ananya has participated in knowledge forums and symposiums organised by ICHCAP, CRIHAP, ICOMOS, UNITWIN, British Council, UNESCO etc.
Born in 1970, Babu Fakir was inspired by his father and went on to learn Fakiri and Bangla Qawwali songs in his early years. He came in touch with banglanatak dot com in 2004, was subsequently trained in Bangla Qawwali, and went on to perform in different cities of the country and abroad, including in Paris, the UK, Switzerland and Japan. He specializes in the songs of Lalan Fakir, Duddu Shah, Panju Shah as well as Kirtan (a devotional music genre). He also trains young artists. His songs also feature in many other music albums, including 'Nadia', 'Gorbhangar Gaan', 'Bangla Qawwali' and 'Compilation of Baul songs'.
Niloy Basu has a degree in information technology and a post graduate qualification in Sustainable Development from Staffordshire University, UK. He has 18 years’ work experience in the development sector including developing community-based collectives and building the entrepreneurial and business skills of ICH practitioners. He has led projects on alternative livelihoods, tourism, art and crafts across India, including West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha and managed large-scale art and culture-based livelihood and community outreach projects in West Bengal and Odisha. He gained experience on ICH through an ICHCAP workshop in Korea, the UNESCO Category II centre providing training for the region. He has also led initiatives for registration of geographical indications for five craft traditions from West Bengal. He will be the Project Manager. He will manage implementation of project activities in India, and assist in the development and implementation of HIPAMS with communities, including the registration of IP rights.
Jagannath Chaudhuri is an eminent Chau artist of Purulia. He has participated in more than 300 events and performed all over West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Gujarat, Chennai and Delhi. His performance has taken him to foreign shores like London (2010), Bangladesh (2011), Japan (2013) and i France (2015 & 2017).
Dr. Harriet Deacon has PhD in History and a MSc in Management of Intellectual Property. Since 2010, she has consulted to UNESCO on implementation of the 2003 Convention on Intangible Heritage, writing workshop training materials and facilitating capacity-building workshops with government officials, researchers, NGOs and community representatives in 16 (mostly developing) countries. She is currently advising the government of Malta on their intangible cultural heritage policy. In her research work, she has published on intangible heritage, IP and culture, including chapters in The Routledge Companion to Intangible Heritage, a paper on the link between IP protection and ICH safeguarding in Intangible Heritage(Smith and Akagawa, forthcoming) and on the Traditional Knowledge Act in Kenya (Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, 2017).
Dr. Diego Rinallo has a PhD in business administration & management Bocconi University, Milan, where he later worked as an assistant professor. His multidisciplinary research interests link marketing and consumer behavior with tourism studies, anthropology, geography, history and cultural studies. His work has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals (e.g. Journal of Marketing and Journal of Business Research) and academic publishers such as Oxford University Press, Emerald, and Routledge.
Dr. Charlotte Waelde is Professor of Intellectual Property Law in the Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University. Her research interests centre on the role of intellectual property law within the cultural (heritage) sector and within the digital environment. She has written widely at the intersections of intellectual property law, digitisation and culture. She has sole and co-authored a number of articles with cross-disciplinary intersections and which have been published in a range of national and international journals. Recent and forthcoming collections and articles include: Research Handbook on Contemporary Intellectual Property: Law and Heritage (ed C Waelde, C Cumming; M Pavis, H Enright)) (Edward Elgar 2018 forthcoming) A new foundation: physical integrity, disabled dance and cultural heritage (with K Wood et al) Intellect (forthcoming 2016); Human Rights, Persons with Disabilities and Copyright, (with A Brown) Geiger (ed) Research Handbook on Human Rights and Intellectual Property, Cheltenham, UK/Northampton, MA, Edward Elgar (2014).
Dr. Benedetta Ubertazzi is a Professor of European Union Law at the University of Milan-Bicocca, and a Professor of Intangible Cultural Heritage and Intellectual Property Law at Bocconi University (Milan). She is a practicing attorney specialising in intellectual property and European Union law at Studio Ubertazzi in Milan. She has worked as a legal expert representing the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in UNESCO for the Intangible Heritage Convention since 2010. In her academic capacity, Ubertazzi has also published widely in the field of intellectual property law and on cultural heritage. Her book Exclusive Jurisdiction in Intellectual Property (Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2012) has been nominated for the 2018 St. Petersburg International Legal Forum Private Law Prize.
Rajat Nath is pursuing his PhD in Museum Studies and has a Masters in Science Communication from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani. He has over 15 years of work experience in heritage documentation, museums and use of digital technology. He has experience of doing research and interactive presentations using new technologies for Creative Museum Designers (CMD), a company wholly owned by National Council of Science Museums (NCSM). At Contact Base, Nath has mapped oral histories, rituals, lifestyle and folk traditions of 14 ethnic communities in the Darjeeling area. He is currently working with metal workers, folk painters and storytellers and folk singers to empower them with audiovisual documentation skills for ICH inventorying and technology skills for promotion of their ICH. He will coordinate project activities (such as workshops, conference, research visits) in India and assist the India Research Specialist with research and capacity building in the three communities.
Nirmalya Roy has a post-graduate diploma in rural management and over 18 years of development experience in research, communication and capacity building projects across India. He has implemented culture and development projects with folk artists across West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Assam. He trained folk artist collectives in Balasore, Kalahandi, Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar and Kandamal in Odisha on folk media-based social communication. He has undertaken research on the cultural sustainability (viability) of various ICH elements, designed audiovisual documentaries on folk art forms, and designed and implemented capacity-building workshops with artists. Recently, he has been involved in documentation of art and craft of ethnic communities in Darjeeling hills. He will be the India Research Specialist for the project. He will lead the documentation of ICH elements, use of the documentation for promoting the ICH, and capacity-building in the three identified communities, building on his extensive experience in these areas.
Swarna Chitrakar is a traditional scroll painter from the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. Born in Naya village of Pingla block in Paschim Medinipur district, she belongs to a family of Patuas who practice a unique folk art of painting-cum-storytelling through songs. Swarna, now in her late forties, has been practicing the art since she was a child. She bagged the state-level award in 1994. Over the last two decades, she has been critically acclaimed across India and abroad. Till the summer of 2018, Swarna had visited the US five times and the UK twice, apart from France, Italy, Germany and Sweden to showcase her art skills, to collaborate with artists and to participate in residency programs. Her paintings are bought by connoisseurs and collectors.
This research project, Heritage Sensitive Intellectual Property and Marketing strategies: India (HIPAMS - INDIA), is funded by the British Academy's Sustainable Development Programme, supported under the UK Government's Global Challenges Research Fund 2018-2021.
