Paper short abstract:

The aesthetics of brass jewellery of Jadupatias of Jharkhand are not just about 'charm' but about the agencies that construct in the making of it and the community. The various agencies and cultural elements that construct the aesthetics of this craft have multiple relationships with art.

Paper long abstract:

The Jadupatias is an obscure community in Jharkhand, India, who engage in the dokra jewellery making. The aesthetics of brass jewellery are not just based on the aspect of 'charm'. But there is a larger social construction of its aesthetics of making. It is based on their own environment, the materials they procure from their environment and other secular and non- secular agencies. Family, religion, markets (both local and global) and intervention from the government and non government agencies construct the aesthetic of production, and in turn this constitute their larger social world of interaction which involves and includes the petty businessmen to whom they sell their products, the customers and the artists and the designers with whom they come in contact while in training camp.

But, it's sad that they have forgotten their own stories and songs that constituted the aesthetic of jewellery making earlier, as it has been largely replaced by the songs and stories on the transistors that play in the background. The issue is not that whether the folk songs or stories can always make a claim for their moralistic and superior status over the products of culture industries. But, what was part of their production will never be told or reproduced. Thus the paper would address the role of these agencies that construct the aesthetics of craft which have multiple relationships with art. Also, it would delineate how the community attitude changes towards various agencies which construct the aesthetics of making and their larger social world.

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