Founder, FolkUs Design Interventions, Bangalore
Greetings from FolkUs Design Interventions!
We are a Bangalore based start-up that deals with everything arty and crafty!
Started by me, Tulip, a Product Design graduate from the National Institute of Design, once I realized that nothing excited me more than village-hopping and getting my hands dirty with any possible craft and a day well-spent with the true designers, the karigars.
FolkUs happened by chance; it all started with providing a platform to aid a couple of Patachitra artisans of Midnapore district of West Bengal.
From then on to now, we at FolkUs are committed to Preservation, Intervention & Propagation (PIP) of the wide variety of handicrafts and folk arts that adorn our country, some known, some unknown and a few more that have been long forgotten.
We strive towards skill diversification for dynamic marketability, livelihood generation, craft documentation and retail point-of sale.
Everything—from documenting a lost art, to product development and to strategy-building—that provides a way forward to these assets is the thing that delights us the most.
Clearly, force-feeding these arts/crafts into the contemporary milieu is not the best way of keeping them alive. At the same time, cashing in on the increasing ‘counter-urbanization’ mindset seems like a pool of opportunity that we want to explore.
So far we have been working with providing a contemporary appeal to the Patachitra, Warli and Mithila folk paintings.
Some consultation work in the field of organic (lacware) lathe-turned toy-design, meenakari work, bamboo product development and banana bark-fibre crafts have been our focus at FolkUs for the past couple of months.
Our inaugural exhibition-cum-sale in Bangalore, Oct 2010 was a good testing ground for our range of products. As was evident, art does not sell by itself, not for the non-connoisseur at least! It opened my eyes to the two new kinds of target groups; the uninformed/misinformed on one hand and the inquisitive type on the other hand.
The former types usually are clueless as to why such a big deal is made about art and term them as useless expenses! The insight here being, that art/craft when made utilitarian has far more takers, irrespective of their knowledge levels and can penetrate a wider audience.
The latter bunch on the other hand, comprise of people who have some exposure to the indigenous flavours, albeit second-hand and if something manages to catch their eye, they would not mind investing as long as they have an impressive story or cause to support their purchase, which duly imparts a sense of pride.
It is these insights that have become a preamble for us to generate newer product ranges that cater to any/all these needs or aspirational purchases, as the case may be.
So, here’s inviting all the crafty minds to come together and make FolkUs a success story!
Tulip Sinha is the Founder, FolkUs Design Interventions, Bangalore, India. Tel. 919845.31.9497. Email: tulip.del@gmail.com