Tara Publishing, Chennai, India will organise an illustrated lecture and an exhibit of original tribal art in London on 3rd October 2003 called 'Beasts of India: Art from Court, Tribe and Village'.

The talk will be by Gita Wolf and Kanchana Arni, editors of the art book Beasts of India, a handprinted bestiary featuring some of the best Indian tribal and folk artists. It will be accompanied by a display of original art, introducing these stunning and largely unheeded forms to a general audience. The exhibit will be in association with TRIBES, a project of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India.

The Book

Beasts and other creatures of the natural world are central to the art imagination of India. Every tradition conceives of the beast in distinctive ways, as original in the imagining as the rendering. Beasts of India, brought out by Tara Publishing, features 33 brilliant images from India's most exciting tribal and folk artists. The book is not an ethnographical documentary, but a new way of putting together their work - as living art for a contemporary audience. Every image is silk-screened individually - each book requiring an incredible hand printed 137 impressions - making this celebration of the variety of Indian visual traditions a book and art collector's dream.

The Event

The project involved working with a range of art conventions and artists across India, some of whom have remained within their own grammar, while others re-work them continuously. In their illustrated lecture on the making of the book, the editors will focus on the need to re-think clichés on the nature of tradition - and the tokenism with which it is assigned a place in the 'real' art world.

The Artists

The vulnerability of tribal and folk artists is a sad fact, and the project also hopes to initiate a more inclusive way of working with them. The royalties from the sale of the book will be shared by the artists. In this context, the event is also a tribute to the genius of Jangarh Singh Shyam, an extraordinary artist from the Gond tribal community, whose fate appears to symbolize the plight of so many of his kind. A young man from the wild forests of Mandla in Central India, he shot to world fame, only to come to a tragic and untimely end far from home. His rendering of tigers is the cover of the book Beasts of India.

About Tara Publishing

Run by a group of writers, international award winning Tara Publishing is India's most dynamic independent publishing house. Based in Madras (now Chennai), we work with a range of adventurous writers and artists around the world, as well as create books in house. Tara books are now distributed to the trade in the UK through Turnaround PSL, London.

Making Books by Hand

Beasts of India is handmade. We are the first to have brought in the book made entirely by hand - from the paper to the printing and binding - into general market. These are not esoteric artists' objects. What we want to do is bring the senses back into the experience of a good book…to turn old traditions of bookmaking into a contemporary and affordable form, using the material, skills and expertise still available here in India.

All of our handcrafted editions are printed and bound at AMM screens, which consists of a group of young men from nearby villages who live and work together in a commune. Apart from their bookmaking work, they are also active in street theatre performances. With the motto 'Nothing is Impossible', the team has so far produced an incredible 50,000 handmade books for Tara Publishing.

Each page of every book is screen printed individually by hand, which means that each sheet is an original print. On the average, this works out to a total of 250,000 pulls for a full print run. The greatest challenge is to maintain accuracy and a high production quality despite the number of times the book needs to be handled at various stages.