a radio feature produced by Michael Shirrefs
An enduring collaboration between Indian and Australian potters is featured on Creative Instinct this week.
Michael Shirrefs is on a journey to the outskirts of Delhi, to enter a labyrinthine series of pottery colonies.
In a city of more than 16 million people, the need for functional and ceremonial ceramic objects is endless. But being a potter, or Kumhar, in India is not a choice. In a world of traditional hierarchies and castes which dictate the lives of millions of individuals, families and communities, it’s a life that you’re born into.
However, in a modern India, this sort of collective fatalism is being questioned. The word ‘caste’ is increasingly out of favour, and things are changing … slowly.
Michael Shirrefs is heading to an area called Vikas Nagar—off the main drag, and into the narrow, dusty, unmarked streets—to find a potters’ colony called Kumhaargram.
It’s an endless chaos of auto-rickshaws and trucks and people and cows and dogs, and he’s looking for one person in particular—an Australian potter called Sandra Bowkett.
Guests
Sandra Bowkett
Deep Chand
Dharmveer
Vineeta Singh
Ann Ferguson
Minhori Lal
Credits
Michael Shirrefs, Producer
John Jacobs, Sound Engineer
© 2012, Michael Shirrefs & ABC RN