‘Chari Waddo’: Looking at Goa’s woodworker community through collodion silver images

Panaji, Dec 15 (PTI) The result of visual artist Mrinal Bahukhandi’s four years of association with Goa’s woodworking Chari community is a collection of photographs set to print in a 19th century process recalling an era suspended in time -- just as the wood art itself.

The artisans, according to Bahukhandi whose work is displayed at the ongoing 10th Serendipity Arts Festival, continue to practice their craft using handmade tools and little assistance from modern machines, something he finds similar in his practice of developing photographs using the collodion process.

Collodion is the viscous fluid that results in a clear, transparent film on the photograph, a painstaking process of developing photographs that Goa-based Bahukhandi says can last up to 200 years.

“Chari Waddo: An Echo of Time”, curated by renowned photographer Prashant Panjiar, is Bahukhandi’s attempt at paying tribute to a community that has remained practically unchanged for nearly 400 years with a photographic process that has gone all but extinct. Both rooted in toil and tradition.

Chari Waddo, a quaint hamlet nestled in Moira village, is home to hereditary traditional carpenters and metal fabricators who have lived and worked here since the 17th century.

The black and white photographs don’t capture the residents in their craft but appear to reflect the stillness after an honest day’s work. The men sitting by their workbenches or “bhakhda”, their traditional tools resting in ancient solemnity, their lanes devoid of activity and their children, quiet but curious.

“I have not focused on their craft as much on their tools, because a lot of the tools are handmade. Every small little thing that you see is handmade by them.

“And then there is a 400 years of tradition of being in Chari Waddo. My own practice is set in tradition. This photographic process is from 1851. I am just trying to encapsulate everything in a historic process,” Bahukhandi told PTI.

In the same room with his photographs, he has put on display the chemicals, tools and apparatuses that are required in the collodion process.

The early image making process requires the photographic material to be coated, sensitised, exposed, and developed within a span of a few minutes. The photographer has to have a portable darkroom for use in the field, which Bahukhandi has devised behind his van.

“Their craft was very important, and the tools are very important for me. So, I associated my own practice with their practice. For me to display my own tools, my own process, and the fact that it is set in tradition is kind of respecting their tradition in saying that this has come together as one piece,” Bahukhandi said.

The images developed using the collodion process carry a graphic similarity to the early 20th century colonial ethnographic images but are distinct in the stoic directness of the gaze of their subjects, the young and old of the Chari community.

The intimacy of the portraits also emerges from Bahukhandi’s long association with the people of Chari Waddo, where he went to learn woodworking in 2021.

“So one of my main interests in learning woodwork was because I was interested in working with my hands. In this practice the camera is wooden, its holder is wooden, the frames are wooden. Then you have a portable darkroom,” he said.

A tree falling into his compound in 2021 was the first time he got to know that fresh wood is not used for woodwork.

“...then I found these people fortunately and started learning about wood, how it works, how the grain works, how to cut it, how to chisel it, shape it, and join it, all of that from them,” the 45-year-old said.

The 10th edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival opened here on December 12 with over 40 curators across disciplines of visual arts, crafts, theatre, dance, music, photography and culinary arts.

The 10-day celebration marks a decade of celebrating multi-disciplinary arts, shaped by the expertise of veterans of their respective fields, including poet-art critic Ranjit Hoskote, theatre director Anuradha Kapur, Bharatanatyam dancer Geeta Chandran, music director Ranjit Barot, art curator Rahaab Allana and food historian Odette Masceranhas.

The festival ends on December 21. PTI MAH MIN MIN