Shifting Narratives is a multi-media arts project charting the radical shift in perspectives and creation of narratives by tribal youth & locals in Jharkhand, India using digital mediums like photography and film. It examines the social collaborative process and reflects on the issues pertinent to the lives and community of the indigenous as seen, experienced and documented by them.

Societies constantly engage with and create narratives both knowingly and unknowingly. Humans have a natural tendency to learn or understand in a story format and as long as visuals in the form of art, video or photos has existed so has a certain bias dependent on the person behind the lens especially if the person in front comes from a culture that is not fully understood. Spaces for visual exploration and expression for underprivileged or under-represented communities is less, even more so digitally.

Tribal communities in India have often been looked at through the myopic lens of exoticism, labelled with false and offensive stereotypes through racist and bigoted ethnographies during colonial times, their true identities have struggled with perceived notions many of which are by-products of colonisation and rapid globalisation.

While their traditional arts, rich culture and imagery have been exploited time and time again, the creation of hyper local specific narratives of contemporary tribal issues have been slow due to such spaces being over powered and controlled by privileged classes and spaces for the longest time.

The creation of original narratives, activation of grassroots imagination by tribal communities thus has been imperative in the face of adverse climate change, land grabbing and threat to their identity.

With the firm belief that the camera can be used as a tool for social empowerment and engagement. Through participatory based pedagogy and online interaction youth collaborators from three remote and distinct districts of Jharkhand first absorbed visual storytelling practices, learnt techniques and then documented visuals and issues concerning their immediate surroundings, creating a digital archive of deeply personal and social narratives, creating a space for conversation.

My artistic approach and role has been that of a facilitator and collaborator, contextualizing the thoughts and ideas captured by the youth into a multimedia compendium of inter connected stories rhizomatic in nature. I’m exploring new ways to try to tell these stories and processes and question the audience. Social collaboration is the framework upon which the project is based.

The intrinsic ability for art to connect humanity is the heart of this visual piece, in many ways shifting narratives is an attempt to expand the power of the camera, the power of the visual form and how no matter who tries to control it, eventually arts will always be unchained.

Before we go further, from this point on we will be referring to Indian tribals by the term Adivasi. The collective term used for the tribes of the Indian sub-continent. The word is made from two Sanskrit words:
ādi – 'beginning, origin' and vāsin – ‘Dweller’.

The Original Inhabitants

Forest-Home-Forest

There exists a symbiotic relationship between the indigenous of the world and the environment they inhabit. This is true for tribal communities in India as well. Indigenous culture is an amalgamation of respect and adoration for its surrounding environments and the sustenance it provides. From the village of Porlong, Yadav Leyangi of the Ho Tribe documents this intrinsic relationship and vignettes of life around his village.

As part of the workshops, the conservations we engaged in led to Yadav speaking about natural produce from the forests as an essential part of the life of Adivasis and how the disappearance of the forests around them and its effects can be heard in the voices of the elders in the village. For centuries, Adivasis have fought for their forest rights, believing in sustainable methods of living, they have faced increased threats to their environment and forests.

The film we have created here introduces us to Porlong through Yadav’s lens. His family, friends all become a part of the visual narrative, through these inter-linked processes, the voices of his elders, from using the Sal leaf to make eco-friendly plates and cups for a wedding feast to the collection of firewood for cooking and massaging warm oil on a new born give us a short glimpse in the intertwining of nature and life. We see the gradual transition from forest to human life to back to forests.

This form of Narrative inquiry facilitates freedom of expression, his cellphone camera’s lens provides a new perspective on the connection to land and all living things. His framing and aesthetic are his lived experiences.

India’s Adivasis have faced systemic discrimination for centuries, while colonization started the forceful removal of the Adivasis outside their habitats, globalization and capitalism today ensures and continues to aid that colonial mindset.

It is one of the largest indigenous populations of anywhere on the earth and threats like mining, deforestation, climate change, dilution of forest rights laws and colonial ideas of wildlife conservation loom over them and future generations. The age old protectors of India’s ancient forests now battle to live alongside them. Their lives, their narratives, who they are showcased trough their lens becomes an important factor in asserting their rights. This kind of visual narrative method and normalizing of such visuals contributes greatly in aiding this activism.

As a student, he is also documenting the various herbs, plants used in the forest tribal economy in his own journals, illustrating them and collecting them for posterity. This is probably the first time someone from his village may have documented life with such digital tools like cameras. Yadav is now continuing to document visuals every day.

What is Home?

During the documentation of forest produce processes by Yadav, the act of painting parts of the home with natural paint stood out and posed several observations and questions. Primarily, what is home?

Through his visuals, we see the slow transformation of an object from the forest, which leads not to waste but metamorphoses into the mud walls of the house. The boundary of a personal home and forest is blurred in the process. It becomes very much a part of the walls and floor of the house and people who live there. For most of us, homes are intimate personal spaces. Rented, bought, acquired for the purpose of settlement and safeguarding possessions.
But what about communities whose definition of home expands to beyond the walls, for whom their immediate surroundings and environment encapsulate the idea of home and what it can be, and has been so for eons.

We posed this question to Yadav’s sister Bale liyangi and she tells us how their forest is like a large home to them, just like a house that has a kitchen, a place to sleep, a roof and a fan to keep us cool. The forest too provides this and much more, the forest is the roof and floor and everything in between. This ties into the living philosophy of indigenous knowledge - to not take much from the forest, cause no harm and live-in harmony with all living beings.

The picking of the bark, the making of the extract and the painting of the walls and bringing the forest home gives us an ephemeral glimpse into this philosophy. Sustainability is key to the lives of the indigenous people. This combination of digital storytelling and Indigenous ideas can illuminate and offer multiple ways to learn, understand and tackle many pressing issues. The forest is the tribe and the tribe is the forest and when this balance is disturbed, it causes monumental disruptions.

60% of the world’s sheet Mica is mined in India. Mostly Using child labour.

The mining of mica was banned in India after its largest importer the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 90s and new forest land laws were put in place. Leaving mostly Adivasi families without any livelihood. Generations ago Adivasis were pushed out of these lands by the colonisers. Decades later the lands have been ravaged and now the Adivasis struggle to survive on the same lands their ancestors once protected. In these unstable mines, they look for mica – considered one of the most stable insulators. Used in everything from toasters, TVs, mobile phones to cars and its shiny flaky variety is used by the $400 billion cosmetics industry in everything from eye shadows to lipsticks.

The Mica mine encompassed in a circle is an intentional motif, representing the millions of round cosmetic kits that contain mica mined by child labour, it is a representation of the cycle of exploitation. The 3D mica stone is an attempt to let the audience in some way interact and realise that thousands of children mine these with their hands and behind its shiny and superficial façade, this stone has affected countless lives and is arguably one of the worst human rights violations happening today.

Adivasi issues are all intersectional. Having created a culture and system of life around forests, taking away one of the most integral part in these equations is bound to create havoc in the life of the community. The gravest threat to the indigenous way of Life is Rampant Mining in forest lands. Apart from the environmental impact, mining brings about large-scale land dispossession for Adivasis. In Jharkhand the illegal mining of Mica has pushed Adivasi families into a continuous circle of exploitation.

Roshni, from Dhab village has been working to help young Santhal Adivasi children give up mica mining work and go back to schools. While it employs people of all age groups, the most vulnerable are children as young as six who accompany parents to the mines. They crawl into tiny holes dug into the mines, to be able to get to the rich mineral deposits deep inside. Over the years, children have been trapped inside these so called “rat-holes”, as the unstable caves collapse in itself killing them.

For Roshni, it was difficult to create many of these images, the families are weary of cameras and questions. As the work is banned, they fear repercussions and loss of livelihood if images are published. Respecting the privacy of the children and their families, we decided not to show faces and names and instead find another way to talk about the issue.

During the workshops, we spoke about the rough conditions faced by children while doing this extremely unsafe work, cuts from rough stones, dust and dirt all gather on their little hands the entire time they are at the mines. This was decided to be the theme of the documentation. Hiding their exploitation has become a necessity, but hands do not hide the material conditions they have been through. Lung diseases like tuberculosis, low nutrtion are very prevalent in the communities.

The creation of these images of the land and its exploited people is more a question to the audience than it is a documentation. Digital Activism spaces have been devoid of such personal narratives for the longest time, Adivasis struggles have mainly been focused at on-ground protests and public mobilization, it is only now in the second decade of the 21st century that visual spaces in the digital world are opening up for such narratives of DBA communities.

Manifesting such narratives that create uncomfortable questions and conversations coming directly from the source are very much needed. Western agencies have all tried to highlight the issue greatly, yet there still has to be a rise in local narratives and the emphatic authenticity it can offer. Photography is a tool, in its most rudimentary form has always been about the creation of creative visual spaces, here in the stories of the children it can be so much more. Roshni along with her work is now continuing to document the families and children.

Separation

It is in some ways ironical, that the cell phones these photos were captured on or the screen you are reading this on now, all contain mica in some form or other. This brought a jarring realisation for me to reflect on not just the exploitation of the children but the role of user-generated silence that consumerism, wasteful consumption and globalisation has installed in our lives. It is not a conscious silence but one that is easily forgotten in the rapid creation and consumption of products but is in no way indicative of the ignorance of the user but really an indictment of the system that readily hides this for profit. It is a disconnection.

So then, is it really possible to separate the hands of the exploited from the products that are created. The space below re-frames and explores this thought in a tangible way. This graphic interaction allows the audience to construct a environment with components exploring a narrative and branching new ones.

Can you separate the exploitation from the product. Move this and others.