Art at Rassba

Art @ Rassba Farm

All art forms are a sensory experience, that has a way of elevating our consciousness. It enriches and adds a subtle, sublime flavour to enhance our life experiences. Food does the same thing when we engage with it mindfully. The sensory experience of full flavoured food has been described to be meditative.

At Rassba Farm, we constantly celebrate the sensory relationship and the life enhancing capability between food and art forms. While we bring you food that is ‘Made of Taste’, we are also engaged in preserving and promoting art forms in our own way.

As a tribute to and celebration of the God given gift to artists, we will bring to you in this page, art forms that have touched our soul. We will make a contribution to help promote and preserve these art forms, whenever you buy a product from Rassba Farm. From your side, enjoy and support these art forms in the best way you can.

 

Chittara

Chittara is an intricate art form from Malnad in Karnataka. Traditionally, the art form was painted on walls,  created by tribal women on their red mud-coated houses, as well as rangoli floor designs. Chittara paintings are part of a larger context of creativity and celebration in the cultural milieu of the region. The stylised figures of Chittara painting are generally symbols of brides and grooms, fertility, the sowing of the auspicious paddy, birds, trees, animals etc. It is engaged primarily by the women folk of the community as a socio-cultural practice.

Chittara drawings are intricate patterns, that represent the auspicious ceremony and rituals of life, symbolized in geometric patterns. This requires a certain understanding of ratios and proportions, which the women of the community have been using with great dexterity. This folk art was and still is a part of their day-to-day life. It was never a profession, but a practice that has artistic and socio-cultural value.

The paintings are usually 2 – 3 feet in size, aesthetically refined, made of symbols representing their physical environment. They use eco-friendly natural resources like ground rice paste for white colour, roasted rice for black, yellow seeds (Gurige) red earth and the brushes are made up of plant based fibres. For women of the community Chittara paintings are a source of great joy, beauty and creativity.

All the packaging of Rassba farm products have a depiction of the Chittara Art.

 

Art Installations @ Rassba Farm

At Rassba farm, we have also created art installations that you can see, enjoy and understand the thematic concepts behind them, when you visit us. We use these art installations to tell you stories of farmers and farming in India, that will help you appreciate the life source that we all depend on – which is food that the farmers grow for you. 

Here are the first of four art installations that you will see at Rassba farm.

 

Broken Promises

The food security that India went through in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, gave birth to the Green Revolution. The socialist mindset of the government told farmers not to depend on the rains for farming. Borewells were gifted to farmers.

Farmers became dependent on the marvel of the borewell. The traditional knowledge on how to farm in harmony with the nature – during droughts and floods - got wiped out with the marvel of the borewell.

Soon the industrial development of India progressed and power hungry industries became a priority. What did the government do – they pulled the plug and said – sorry no electricity!

This old borewell with the colors of blue, depicting hope and slowly moving to grey depicts the ‘Broken Promises’ that the farmer had to suffer.

 

Joint Family

Joint families were part of the culture in India.  

It was the back bone for farming, where the entire family  - brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, children, all shared work and the burden of farming.

Then came the industrial revolution. Joint families were not good for the industries. While a joint family will buy one radio, when a joint family splits to 3 nuclear families, then 3 radios can be sold.

India also fell into the trap of the Western industrial revolution motivated of nuclear families and sacrificed its precious joint family system.

These old rejected gas cylinders are our canvas to depict the syndrome of the lost joint family system, that affected farming in ways we cannot even imagine.

 

Green Dreams

Every farmer has green dreams. We dream that all our crops will flourish and give the returns that they dream of.

This is particularly true of new farmers….those urbanites who want to get into farming because it seems rosy and romantic. This dreaming is good and necessary, as it is dreams that are the first step for anything new.

This installation is dedicated to all the dreamers in the world. Especially those who dream for the betterment of farmers.

This installation also refers to the book – Grean Dreams, that was authored by CB Ramkumar, which describes how the first 100% eco resort  - Our Native Village was built.

 

Slippery Slope

 

Every farmer is on a slippery slope. When you hold a vegetable in your hands, the back story of that vegetable is a complicated one, with many risks.

First, the production of a good quality seed is complicated, with no guarantees that that seed will germinate into a plant.

Then, the growth of the plant is subject to vagaries of nature – too much sun or rain, no electricity to pump water out of a borewell, unpredictable nutrients, all affect that plant. There is still no guarantee that the vegetable will be of the size and quality that the urban customer will accept – or reject without any concern or knowledge of the efforts that the farmer has gone through.

This installation depicts the risks that farmers take to bring food to your homes.

Invitation for artists

We invite artists, students of art to come to Rassba Farms, get connected with nature and food, get inspired and develop more art, music, poetry and many art installations!