DakshinaChitra Exhibition Explores Pardhaan Gonds' Sacred Stories Through Art

At DakshinaChitra, a new exhibition titled 'Myth, Memory and Form' is tracing the Pardhaan Gonds' sacred stories through paintings inspired by oral Gond traditions. The exhibition, curated and designed by Apoorva Mishra and Achyut Siddu, asks what is gained and lost when indigenous knowledge is transformed into art.

Rich History of the Pardhaan Gonds

The Pardhaan Continuum, a 7.5-metre book, charts the rich history of the Pardhaan Gonds, a sub-community of the Gond tribes. It captures the myth of their sacred origin, traditional rituals, and deities, anchoring itself around the stories of Bada Dev, their supreme creator.

The Gonds, one of the oldest indigenous Dravidian groups in India, are spread across Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Odisha. Historically, the Pardhaans have served as the community's priests, hereditary bards, and genealogists.

Transforming Oral Traditions into Art

For the exhibition, National Award-winning Gond artists such as Kailash Pradhaan and Ajay Marko, alongside Pattachitra artist Prahallad Moharana, recorded and transformed the community's oral narratives into paintings. The artists worked closely with Pardhaans from Patangarh village in Madhya Pradesh's Dindori district for over three years.

'Myth, Memory and Form' features 40 paintings, including a 10 ft. x 20 ft. canvas depicting the origin story of the River Narmada in a single, continuous scene. The story told by Gangaram Uikey, a Pardhaan Gond from Patangarh, is different from the well-known version described in the Skanda Purana.

The exhibition raises urgent questions about the impact of digitalisation and decolonisation on indigenous knowledge and art. It sends the audience home with more questions to wrestle with.

'Myth, Memory and Form' is on till December 6 at DakshinaChitra Heritage Museum, ECR, Chennai.