My recent visit to the Peoples Agricultural Farm conservation site,
Pudukkottai, was rewarding educational and inspiring from beginning to end. The organisation is working with the following mission. It believes that poverty can be addressed by leading the farmers towards right practices. It also believes that organic ways of agriculture and conservation of nature impacts the humans to a greater extent. Its focus is on sustaining and conserving plants, especially those with medicinal value for the future - and passing that knowledge onto a wider community.
My time in India, has on many an occasion been a crazy, disorientating and whirlwind experience. In part i've felt that this is due to my lack of roots in indian soil, the unfamiliarity of the forever seasons, the religions, the customs, with no referents back to the world I know. This may sound like the most obvious of observations, after all i'm an English girl in a foreign land... but its the simple things, the important things, like not knowing the names of the trees i'm drawing, the birds, flowers, their stories or to be able to put into words the natural world and its rhythms around me. This has at times been a dizzying disorientating experience. All my senses on high alert always to learn, absorb and distil all and as much of every second that I can!
Disorientating yes, yet at the same time this has opportunity has also given the chance of an exciting adventure during my time here everyday, finding, learning and identifying, with new and fresh eyes. As an artist I learn, explore and document my world through observation, lines, touch, texture, found objects, poems, videos and paintings - my trip to the
PAF was no exception and my studio is now slowly filling with curious, sketches and paintings distilled from a spark that was set alight during that visit.
My trip to the
PAF was the first time i'd received any direct guidance, actually to meet the people who, here are putting into practice the things I have read, can name at ease is English, Tamil and Latin the plants I have bumbled may way through to identify with more than a nod to uncertainty. Some I knew, some i'd even got right, but the
PAF organisers had a great and practised knowledge, which they kindly showed me during a visit to their conservation site.
I feel in the west, at times we are chasing the east, whilst the east in turn chases and tries to catch up with the west. A lot of our folklore,
ehtnobontany, wild food has been forgotten - the stories stopped being told generations ago, along with the belief in the power that nature can hold. We are lucky in England that the knowledge has not completely gone and that, there seems to be a true and real resurgence in that way of life and living closer to the land. India is in a position - where the stories are thankfully still being told, maybe quietly but with projects like this most importantly.
It was so refreshing for me to visit a project that is actively keeping these traditions alive, and passing this knowledge onto new generations. Its an amazing project, and a wonderful site, which will hopefully help to conserve and sustain important species for the future. The importance of using local produce and medicinal herbs for self treating and leading a healthy life is so beneficial to many people in India. I was also particularly impressed by their, practiced belief in agro forestry, organic farming and biodiversity. It truly is a special place - and one I hope they get to share the joy of with many people to come.
the passing on of knowledge is a beautiful thing - shared with one person or many it is always important.
Said a tree to a man, "My roots are in the deep red earth, and I shall give you of my fruit."And the man said to the tree, "How alike we are. My roots are also deep in the red earth. And the red earth gives you power to bestow upon me of your fruit, and the red earth teaches me to receive from you with thanksgiving."Kahlil Gibran
