A Sweeping Success

The Rupayan Sansthan-run Arna-Jharna celebrates open spaces and the richness of Rajasthan’s traditions by showcasing everyday objects and folk culture, highlighting their connection to the local communities and the environment.

- Sneha Mahale

INDIA’S CULTURAL HISTORY IS mind-boggling in its diversity. Yet, while tourists line up outside The Louvre in Paris or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, their counterparts in India are largely ignored. One explanation characteristically given is that cultural spaces in the country house static historical artworks and artifacts, making the museum experience an uninspiring prospect. But some institutions challenge this very convention.

Take the Rupayan Sansthan-run Arna-Jharna for example. It celebrates the open spaces of the desert as part of a larger holistic exploration of the museum as a place of learning. It also promotes indigenous knowledge of Rajasthan and encourages the idea that ‘folk’ is contemporary. Thus ‘culture’ is not merely instrumentalised or objectified here, but viewed as an integral part of what it means to be human.

Back to the roots

The conception of Arna-Jharna, which literally translates to ‘desert spring’, was a natural one. The Rupayan Sansthan was established in 1960, when the late Komal Kothari, a renowned folklorist and ethnomusicologist, and his friend Vijaydan Detha, an eminent writer, decided to collect folk tales and songs to bring out the richness of the Rajasthani language.