CHARI WADDO: An Echo of Time

Free
Photography
Exhibition

Curated by
Prashant Panjiar

The Old GMC Complex
First Floor, GMC Building

14th December - 21st December
11:00 AM - 07:00 PM

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TIME

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Legacy of a community of woodworkers in collodion silver images

CHARI WADDO: An echo in time is a quaint hamlet nestled in Moira village of Goa, home to hereditary traditional carpenters who have lived and worked here for over three centuries. The Chari trace their roots to four ancestral brothers who first settled here, and over generations, the family shaped much of the architectural woodwork in Goa, from doors and windows to intricately carved church altars.

Even today, the Waddo is a place suspended in time practically unchanged from the past, where a long standing tradition of woodcraft continues to survive through a bloodline of artisans. Stretched along a serene lake-khazaan, the village soundscape is eternally humming with the soft rhythm of hand planers, chisels and occasional machine tools echoing from the workshops that adjoin almost every home. Using the historic wet-plate-collodion process—a slow and demanding photographic method from 1851—this work seeks to mirror the history of the Chari as a portraiture of their unbroken lineage and continued legacy. From 2021 to 2023, Mrinal Bahukhandi learnt the basics of woodworking in Chari Waddo from members of the community.

Artist: Mrinal Bahukhandi

Additional Credit: Atelier Monad, Goa