What did I used to do back home (India)?

When I was having trouble finding guidance on what and how to go about the process of documenting, I was guided to look “Extra-Urban material culture” which was an extensive study of a farmer Zeno from the “Confessions of Zeno”. I was visually inspired by the details documented in the book.

I used the methodology of auto-anthropology by introspecting materials around me to gather information from my own lived experiences.

Following are a collection of various activities documented throughout a typical day in my household.

Amma making ginger garlic paste with Ammi Kal (Roller stone)

Vegetable waste collected together in Moram (dust pan for food waste)

Food waste thrown into the compost pit that is a reminder of the bio-gas plant that we used to have back in my hometown.

Water used to clean the grinded remains are collected as vegetable stock that would be added back into the dish while cooking

My mom teaching my niece how to make a ‘watch’ out of coconut leaf

Semi-homemade bamboo hooks used to pull coconuts, tree branches, etc.

Rare and a special delicious dish ‘Idiappam’ made at home as a group as it requires multiple helping hands ….and sometimes feet too

Aapai karandi (coconut ladle) made and used traditionally even today despite having a blender and a grinder

My niece playing with the ‘snake’ made from coconut leaf

My father explaining the role of a coconut tree in our family and how our lives are woven together

My father’s resting spot as he lays on the hammock he made

In the meantime, the read about material culture in “Mind in matter” by Prown which helped me understand how culture can live in its purest untainted form and pass through the materials that we use everyday. With this I understood that it is imperative to understand the people, their behaviour, and the relationship with one another and with that of the materials around them, the techniques and traditions that were used to build them. The classification used in the book helped me frame the categories under which each of the material that I studied comes under ‘Applied arts’ and majorly ‘Devices’

The objects/tools around my house that we had made using indigenous materials

I used the method of personal inventory technique to gather a few objects around the house to study them. While also having long conversations with my family asking them to narrate the background and reason behind each object.

The cycle of my father’s T-shirt in my household. The various stages of usage it undergoes before being discarded or given away.

But through interviews with some of my other Indian friends, it was pretty clear that these objects and/or practices were not only unique to my family alone. This led me to shift my focus from practices and materials to the inter relationship between people and material around them.

Each member connecting each other with the attributes that they shared through artefacts