‘Chandua: Canopies of Labour’ Documents Odisha’s Appliqué Traditions Beyond the Craft Object

Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s appliqué tradition takes centre stage in a new bilingual publication that looks beyond its colourful canopies and decorative forms to document the knowledge, labour and communities that have kept the craft alive.

Titled Chandua: Canopies of Labour, the publication was launched by Odisha Craft Odyssey (OCO) during the valedictory session of its 2026 symposium, Mapping Transitions: Art, Craft, and the Ethnographic Turn, at the Odisha Research Centre Auditorium in Bhubaneswar.

The publication is the outcome of nine months of research across 45 craft clusters, involving more than 255 artisans. It combines fieldwork, archival research, visual documentation and artisanal biographies to examine the materials, techniques, terminology and cultural contexts surrounding Odisha’s appliqué traditions.

Published in English and Odia, the book is edited by Premjish Achari and Sibdas Sengupta. The research was carried out under the OCO Fellowship Programme 2025–26, with Madhulika S. Naidu as Research Fellow and Raj Maurya as Archivist Fellow.

Rather than treating appliqué as a static craft tradition, the publication examines how knowledge and techniques are transmitted and adapted, while bringing the experiences and working processes of artisans into the narrative.

Sandeep Hota, Co-founder and Managing Director, BEADS, and Advisory Board Member, OCO, said the publication sought to document “the knowledge, labour and lived experiences” behind the visual identity of appliqué. He said the fieldwork across 45 clusters had helped build a more grounded understanding of the craft and its practitioners.

Editor Sibdas Sengupta said the research explored appliqué through its materials and techniques as well as the memories, histories, relationships and working processes surrounding it. He described Chandua as a living practice that continues to evolve with its practitioners.

The publication was unveiled in the presence of Energy and E&IT Additional Chief Secretary Vishal Kumar Dev as Chief Guest and designer and scenographer and Padma Bhushan awardee Rajeev Sethi as Guest of Honour.