Preserving the Ancestral Terracota Crafts of Andretta Village, Himachal Pradesh.

Contemporary artists based in Andretta showcase their practice at the India International Center in its recent and first ever group exhibition.

Andretta, a name that sounds foreign, exists in the heart of Himachal Pradesh in India. The town appeared on the artistic and cultural map of Lahore, Delhi, and Punjab in the 1920s when actress and theatre practitioner Norah Richards moved to Andretta from Lahore. She invited different practitioners of the arts, crafts, and theatre to establish a community of creatives working in and out of this village. After Norah, Gurcharan Singh of Delhi Blue Pottery, set up a pottery studio in Andretta village and many others like B.C. Sanyal and Sardar Sobha Singh followed. 

In Andretta, a distinctive form of pottery has emerged from the village’s history of crafting with Terracotta in India. The Andretta terracotta craftsmanship has moved to slip glaze, experiments with structure and forms to generate new markets for Pottery.  Andretta over the years has been a learning space for people who become part of this collective. It has created a space of intellectual, material, and creative refuge.

Opening the Path to Terracotta Pottery Traditions of Andretta

Path to Andretta is an exhibition curated by Sarover Zaidi and Akansha Maglani, putting on display the collective vision of the various artists working out of Andretta. Their artworks are a sweet mixture of skill and craft, utility and embellishment, a de-theorised approach towards artistic practice.

The exhibition features a combination of Prints, Paintings, Calligraphy, and various utilitarian Sculptures made out of Terracotta clay, ceramic, epoch and more. All of which are displayed under the sombre soundscape composed by Arjun Sen, sound artist part of the Andretta collective.

The approach towards the exhibition has been to curate a show that brings together these sets of people who are connected to the place and have established a practice culture within Andretta. Sarover Zaidi, a teacher by profession, reflected on the tension between art and craft. “I did not want to exhibit the works in a gallery space, which is completely white-washed” says Zaidi. 

Andretta Village and Indian Pottery Heritage 

The 4th floor, designated as the art gallery at the India International Center, has hints of terracota brown in its walls. The high-end glaze shining through the plates, pots, and vases, laid out on a long table in the middle of the room, put the affordable yet chic terracotta pottery traditions straight on view

Artists like Mary Singh, Mansimran Singh, Shubham Sankhyan, fill the room with distinct styles of sculpting their individual pieces, yet the technique in their works seems to resonate a collective ideology. By putting pieces of ornate quality and utilitarian functionality on view, Path to Andretta, slips a rough note under the traditional doors of gallery exhibitions.

Though IIC is a niche space, its strangely diverse audience is exposed to the historical Terracotta clay which has been used locally by numerous artisans in India. In Andretta, even though the locals do not practice with terracotta clay anymore, because of its “hierarchical history”, the collective of artists is pushing the culture forward.

Shubham Sankhyan, whose whirling dervishes are exhibited in the space, currently runs the Andretta Pottery Studio. In his Derveshi’s, he leaves the head un-glazed, and the raw brick brown of the terracotta, unmasked.  

Printmakers, Ceramists & Painters on Display at the Exhibition 

Along with Shubham, works of Lipoklemla Ao, a ceramacist from Nagaland and Suchika Rathod, who runs the Koozagari Pottery Studio in Bhopal, are displayed in the exhibition. The Andretta Artists contemporary ceramic designs are simple, of common use, yet technically poised on their viewing-shelves.  

Works of Yamini J. Paul, a comparatively young potter on display, experiments with figures in her craft. Her curated works, in her first public show, bring an eerie sophistication to the exhibition.  The idea to put on view, thrown around clay pots and ceramic plates, is to showcase a commercial value of craft within the high-end tradition of wall paintings. Though the exhibition does not lack them either.

Artists like Bianca Ballantyne, Sheila Sedgwick, and Gauri Sharma bring in their techniques of printmaking, painting and drawing to the exhibition. The influence of Andretta as a place comes out heavily in their works.

We are confronted by a map of Andretta, made by Bianca Ballantyne at the entrance of the exhibition, charting the influence of various cultures in the artist community at Andretta. In the acrylic paintings by Gauri Sharma, the skies painted in the composition impress upon us the feeling of the mountainous village. The path to Andretta is navigated through the art works. The place remains imprinted on all.

In the Andretta Collective, “The new generation is exposed to all generations of artisans settled in the village”, says Sarover Zaidi, who herself has been coming in and out of Andretta. It allows for the artistic exchange and practice to continue within the hills and maintains the revival of traditional Indian terracotta crafts. 

The group exhibition has been marked open since the 20th February and will be on display till the 7th March 2025.

Feature Image Courtesy- Sarover Zaidi