Sandooka
The Living Museum of Kodavas
Sandooka, an immersive online repository, vividly showcases the diverse cultural heritage of Kodavas in Kodagu, Karnataka. It traces the cultural evolution, embodying the essence of Kodava life. The term "Chandooka" in the Kodava language signifies a treasure chest—a symbol of collecting and preserving cherished materials and memories.
www.sandookamuseum.org
Compiled over two years through extensive field research and contributions from the Kodava community, this museum offers a vibrant portrayal of the cultural journey.
Curated by a Research, Curation, and Design team, guided by an Advisory Group and Jury, the community stories are categorised into Architecture, Art & Craft, Clothes & Jewellery, Community Histories, Cuisine, Customs & Rituals, Festivals, Landscape, and Literature & Folklore.
The Kodava Community
The Kodavas are one of numerous small communities in India who have their own unique culture, traditions, language, food, rituals and worship. With social changes, the break-up of joint families and migration of the younger generation to urban centres, the traditional modes of passing on the community's lore from one generation to the next are slowly disappearing.
The challenge to preserve the heritage of the Kodavas became the focal point for the project - to create a repository of traditions, rituals of worship, social practices of the Kodavas and the manner in which these have evolved over time.
The museum is designed to be an online platform that can be accessed by everyone. To the future generations of Kodavas, it will provide an emotional link with their land and their people. To others, it will be a resource of knowledge about the glorious traditions of this martial community and its rich history.
In order to draw on these tangible and intangible sources of history, as well as acknowledge the deep necessity of documenting oral histories within this altered time-frame, our proposal looked at the development of the Virtual Museum of Kodava Culture with a central focus on personal stories and community histories.
We envision the Museum as a treasure trove of stories, voices and objects.
It will follow a non-linear structure that foregrounds peoples’ contributions; employing a combination of audio-visual material, narrative formats and interactive encounters to build a multidimensional and open-ended experience of Kodava culture.
The proposal reconsidered the convention that a museum is a static repository of history, and envisions bringing it alive through the presentation of oral histories that highlight personal stories, and peoples’ relationships to identity, place, heritage and collective culture.
At the heart of the user experience was the idea that a museum can be an organic space, made and sustained by community contributions, with a porous and experimental understanding of museum practices.
The curation articulated a non-linear time-line elaborating a contemporary interaction with objects, structures and artefacts, while establishing their connection to the past and future.
The user experience promotes playfulness and exploration for adult and child alike; a dynamic space that is educational while being inclusive. Cultural narratives are multidimensional, and Sandooka's objective is to explore these layers through an open and inclusive lens.
The user experience interpreted the interface using a graph based database system to create a chain of stories that when opened up show the connection across the
9 categories. Each category when clicked on opens up the stories within it and each story also shows the connection that it has with other stories with a visible net.
To make the website accessible, the stories can also be accessed by a collapsible pane through which the stories can be accessed through a simple listing. The connection between the stories is also visible through tags embedded within the content.
Project Director: Lina Vincent
Research and Coordination Head: Mookonda Nitin Kushalappa
Design: Upasana Nattoji Roy, Saurav Roy
Design Studios: r.o.y.studio & theswitchstudio
Studio Associates: Nigel Gomes , Smita Sohoni, Aditi George
Project Associates: Nitya Devayya, Dhriti Belliappa, Christina Dedhia
Web Development lead: Hasan Shahrukh
Front-end developer: Samarth Gulati | Back-end developer: Gaurav Nagar
Media resources: @clare_arni, Aiyuda Prasad Ponnappa, Kuniyanda Mahesh Appaiah, Kalpit Gaonkar, Bhavani G.S.
Editorial Advisors: Boverianda Naniamma Chinnappa, Chepudira P. Belliappa, Kodira Monnappa Lokesh, Sowmya Dechamma C.C.