Content@ Sahapedia
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Table of Contents Preface President’s Note Content@Sahapedia 1 Processes 2 Content Projects 3 Chhattisgarh Heritage Documentation Project The Western Himalayas Documentation Project Oral Histories Saha Sutras Urban Heritage Documentation Project Museums of India Collaborations Workshops and Conferences 8 Fellowship and Grant 9 Sahapedia—UNESCO Fellowship Sahapedia Frames Photography Grant Outreach 11 India Heritage Walks Program 12 Sahapedia Walks, Talks and Workshops India Heritage Walk Festival, 2019 Special Programs 14 Publicity 15 Fundraising 15 Technology 16 Sahapedia 1.5 16 Sahapedia 2.0 17 Social Media 18 Social Media Campaigns 18 The Sahapedia Team Preface His Holiness the Dalai Lama famously and in-house documentation. New said, “Share your knowledge. It is a way partnerships with organisations such as to immortality”. The wisdom behind the Ladakh Arts and Media Organization, these seemingly simple words have had and Vayali from Kerala have enhanced our reverberations across world, in people who collaborative efforts, and experimentations value collective rather than individualistic of knowledge gathering such as Saha Sutras goals in their work. Sahapedia as a web (shorter formats of content), Urban Heritage resource right from its inception in 2011 Documentation Project have brought in believes that participation and involvement new ways of creating content. The existing are the keys to work towards its goals. programmes such as Oral Histories, Museums of India, Sahapeda-UNESCO Fellowship and At the end of eight years, it is good to revisit Frames Photography Grant, and national and the Mission Statement of 2011: “Sahapedia international conferences such as the Life and is a definitive, multi-lingual encyclopedic web Legacy of Guru Padmasambhava, Anchoring resource on Indian cultures and histories. It is Innovation of Handlooms in India and a an informational and educational project that Workshop on Heritage, have all added to the seeks to transform the way people access richness of the resource. and create knowledge on Indian cultural heritage. Sahapedia aims to foster knowledge, The initiatives towards increasing public encourage engagement and generate action awareness and extending the reach of towards understanding and revitalizing Sahapedia have resulted in a splurge of the diversity of Indian culture”. The term activities such as Walks and Talks, Baithaks “culture” is meant as a composite of shared and poetry readings, the Annual India values, beliefs, practices and behaviors of Heritage Walk Festival, a six-day Kutiyattam groups and individuals within them, in the festival and several social media campaigns. broadest sense of the term. It also refers to the internalisation and transmission of As Sahapedia steps into the new term, we have shared ideas and values across generations several challenges in front of us, including and histories was in deference to the widely rethinking the content strategy, developing acknowledged multiplicity of Indian thoughts the web platform for a better user experience and traditions. It is gratifying to see that our and taking more steps towards financial basic philosophy has remained the same sustainability. In this effort, Sahapedia hopes though we have broadened our horizons to to garner support and collaboration of all include new vistas of action. enthusiasts, scholars, practitioners and the academic community to further its mandate. Last year has been eventful for Sahapedia. Content for the encyclopedic resource has Sudha Gopalakrishnan scaled through collaborations, fellowships, Executive Director President’s Note Recording Indian culture, the country’s us through ideation, sharing of expertise and contribution to universal heritage, is not research. For this, we thank them and look a task undertaken lightly, nor one easily forward to future projects with them. Finally, accomplished. Sahapedia has now been we thank our donors, both corporate and engaged in it for the last 8 years, and as we private, who share our vision and support move along this path, we have realised that our work generously. Our work would not be while access to this knowledge—about the possible without their support. ways we make things, think through concepts, engage with the natural and sacred or build We hope you continue this journey of discovery our homes—is crucial, experiencing them in and collaboration with us. person is also critical. In the last year, Sahapedia has worked S. Ramadorai towards both inscribing knowledge digitally as well as bringing people face-to-face with President India’s diversity through walks, workshops and more. Sahapedia has done intensive work based on field research in the Chhattisgarh Heritage Documentation project, reached out wide to include diverse audiences through its outreach work, documented the country’s diversity in photo essays through the Frames Photography Grant and won the PATA award for the experiences it offered across India during the first edition of the India Heritage Walk Festival, 2018. In addition, the Sahapedia-UNESCO Fellowship was offered for the second time in 2018 and over sixty Fellows have now finished documenting subjects ranging from Hindi comic books to papier mache of Kashmir. Even as our team has grown to become one of the larger non-government organisations in the country working in the culture sector, our partners and collaborators have supported Members of the Kheimnuingan tribe’s cultural troupe perform harvest related rituals at the 19th Hornbill Festival. Content@ Sahapedia Staying true to its objective of participatory Nettur Box and Balaramapuram textile. content creation, Sahapedia has been Seven volumes from the Rashtrapati sourcing content through commissioning, Bhavan series have been digitised in institutional collaborations, the the form of online the Press Secretary, Sahapedia-UNESCO Fellowship and the Rashtrapati Bhavan for approval, and it Frames Photography Grant programs. is expected that these modules will be available online for the public soon. The content produced reflects themes that are acquiring a pan-India dimension, In December 2018, Sahapedia such as weaving and textile traditions documented the Nagaland Hornbill (with content from Assam, Nagaland, Festival via ten videos. These videos Meghalaya, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu), captured textile traditions, performances brewing in eastern India, and Indian and crafts from the region. This was epigraphy. Some modules that Sahapedia the beginning of a larger process of has published recently are on subjects documentation from the Northeast region. such as the Bishnois, bidriware and football culture in Mizoram. The Sahapedia Kochi office has documented, among others, the indigenous heritage of the Kani Tribes, 1 Processes Streamlining processes: A new collection from Killimangalam Centre for workflow model has been designed Documentation is ongoing—one hundred and implemented to streamline and and eleven VHS tapes and audio cassettes systematise the publishing process from have been digitized. These tapes contain content acquisition to online publication. rare and early recordings of performing The role of each member of the content arts such as Kutiyattam, Kathakali and team has been defined as per the new Vedic chanting. Seventy-four audio model and the points of contact between cassettes of Nepathya Collection have each division clearly established. The new also been digitized. These include early workflow enables content to pass through recordings of ‘Koothu’. various assessments to ensure quality. A scheduling system has also been Legal Policies: In 2018-19, Sahapedia developed and executed that enables the conducted a legal audit of its agreements, tracking of content as it passes through contracts and other legal documents. various stages before publication. The Sahapedia undertook the review of its schedule is updated every week. policies regarding the legal status of its content. The organisation is now Digitisation and archiving: Archiving looking to acquire copyright in material content at Sahapedia has become more it commissions—in order to be in a better systematised both on Amazon Cloud (for place to publish it through the Creative content already published) and on NAS Commons framework. To familiarise (for raw content and internal files). Two employees with the latest policies, a digitisation projects are currently housed workshop on Intellectual Property Rights at the Kochi office and discussions are and Copyright Policies was conducted in progressing on a third. Digitisation of the December 2018. Applying make-up (Nepathya) 2 Ramprasad Vasudeva of the Vasudeva community in Chhattisgarh Ahirs, Devars and Banjaras have also Content Projects been curated into modules. Besides entertainment, these Chhattisgarh Heritage Documentation performances (now a part of modules) of Project artists from different parts of Chhattisgarh provide insights into the many regional In association with the Directorate of variations of the same tales-epics- Culture and Archaeology, Government of folklores that float across the country. It Chhattisgarh tells us about the network of traditional sharing, influences and processes of The Chhattisgarh project was initiated localisation in the making and circulation in December 2017 and, in a year’s time, of these performances. The project has the project has successfully published involved multiple field trips by the project 32 modules under various domains. team to Raipur, Sarguja and Bastar, as The spectrum of the