Traditional Cultural Motifs for DesignPractice: Ref. Alpona and Aipan
摘要
Traditional practices, social beliefs, and modern semiotic applications shape a culture. Bringing a notion to reality has always involved technological considerations. Inheritance in social ethos is influenced by social structure, which creates themes for current art forms that affect visual traditions. It takes contextual input from many utilitarian practices and extrapolation to produce a perception to relate to. As a reference Brata Alpona, a Bengali floor line-painting practice usually linked to ceremonies. Alpana, a visual art style, is inspired by ceremonial origin stories. Brata is a socio-religious tradition in which mostly housewives pray to deities for wish fulfilment. This is one of the unique Bengali cultural practices and using it in design can be a modern resurgence. This study examines Brata Alpona, which includes the chharah (rhyme recitation) and the Alpona (floor line depictions). Similar line drawings Aipans is also found in Uttarakhand. This study examines if aspects from both may be leveraged to build value-added design applications given their commonalities and the widespread notion that these two communities are far apart. This women-centric heritage may indicate cultural beliefs and gender norms that shaped this art form. This article explores people’s sense of value addition when applying this art form to various utility commodities and communication expressions to establish an identity—whether pure original or syncretized.