On the 17th and 18th of February, the project team attended the AHRC Programme Launch Workshop at the Moxy Marriot, Mumbai. The launch included an overview of UK-India research and collaboration in the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) landscape as well as the Cultural Heritage (CH) space, focusing on collaboration between the UK and India. It explored past, present and future plans for UK-India research, as well as reflections from the India Fellowship Insights and observations.
The teams of all successful projects funded under the AHRC call India-UK research into creative industries and cultural heritage came together for this workshop. During the two days, Dr Rodriguez Echavarria and Prof Charmi Patel, who were joined online by Dr Ketan Vadodaria, had the chance to exchange experiences and opportunities on setting up and maintaining collaborations between institutions in the UK and India. The different interpretations of the CCI and CH, as well as vision, priorities and goals, were discussed using a world cafe style.
Day two also brought together the wider team partnerships, and we were delighted to have Mr Onkar Lal and Ramlal from the Artisans Alliance of Jawaja (AAJ) with us. They brought with them examples of their dhurries and had the chance to discuss with other partners their experiences of participating in the project. The day focused on designing equitable and ethical partnerships and addressing global north-south asymmetries in project research.
For our project, this was a chance to share our vision with other colleagues facing similar opportunities and challenges. It was also an opportunity to meet with our partners, the Artisans Alliance of Jawaja (AAJ), to refresh our commitment to work together to reframe their crafting practices to address the socioeconomic challenges of our times.
As we explore the heritage which is built on Jawaja’s “creative endeavour”, we will continue to co-design with them strategies for building sustainable strategies which can bring resilience to their crafting practices and thrive within the cultural and creative industry sector.
We are very grateful to the AHRC fellowship team, Prof Navtej Purewal, Dr Eleanor Newbigin, Dr Tajender Sagoo, Dr Anjalie Dalal-Clayton, and all involved in AHRC for organising this event. We look forward to keeping in touch with all other projects and following their journey as we continue to move forward on ours.