Motivated by the mission to break away from the idea of a ‘charity relationship’ between rural and tribal artists and their urban patrons, Neelesh Misra’s Slow Products Private Limited is set to launch its ‘Ten Thousand Creators Project’ in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district.
The event will be attended by Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Singh Baghel and Bastar District Magistrate Rajat Bansal and involve the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Slow Products Private Limited and Bastar district administration.
The MoU entails a joint effort to provide increased incomes, branding, income generating knowledge and skills, marketing and institutional knowledge based linkage to the rural artisans in Bastar.
Talking about the guiding principles behind his ‘Ten Thousand Creators Project’ ahead of the MoU event in Bastar, Slow Products founder Neelesh Misra told Gaon Connection that the event is the first step of a larger effort to connect the rural and the tribal creators with a large audience that is interested in these authentic products made by these creators.
“The traditional idea that is prevalent in the nature of connection between the urban patrons and the rural creators has so far been based around the premise of — ‘Hey, let me buy that rug and their kids will go to school’. We want to break away from this ‘mercy relationship’ or ‘charity relationship’. There is something that these creators offer which is not available in the market yet,” Misra told Gaon Connection.
“The empathy, the humility and the respect for these artists will also find an expression in the prices of the products they make. The idea is to instil the feeling amongst the audience that if you think that these artists deserve to live better lives, charity is not going to suffice and their products will have to be bought at prices that actually respect these creators,” Misra said.
He underlined that this event in Bastar is the first step in realising this imagination.
“Gradually, we shall be including artists from across the country and provide them a platform to improve their livelihoods. Also Gaon Connection becomes a very powerful agency in communicating the idea of this project because of its legacy of championing the cause of rural India and Slow Content, our content arm will be involved in the branding,” he said.
