Abstract
Research-based creative practice documentaries pursue unexplored lines of inquiry and sensory trajectories. This chapter discusses two creative practice documentary projects that I have developed in the Northeast Indian state of Assam. My discussion takes up how the historical contexts of where I work inform the directions of my practice. My interest in documenting Assamese cultural practices as containers of living knowledges constitutes a counterpoint to dominant modes of representing the region that are identified with the ‘counter-insurgent gaze’ (Baruah 2005). The chapter raises my processes for developing Kamakha: Through Prayerful Eyes (2012) and When Women Weave (work-in-progress) to illustrate how documentary aesthetics construct meanings and discourses. I specifically discuss the influence of observational cinema and my approach to social aesthetics devised through haptic audio-visuality.
Notes
- 1.
See Shahani’s Bhavanatarana (Immanence, 1991) and The Bamboo Flute (2000).
- 2.
Kamakha: Through Prayerful Eyes, 2012, directed by Aparna Sharma, distributed by Berkeley Media, http://www.berkeleymedia.com/product/kamakha_through_prayerful_eyes/.
- 3.
Controversial acts such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA, 1958) and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA, 1987) are enforced in many parts of Northeast India.
- 4.
For a detailed discussion on how the counter-insurgent gaze informs mainstream Indian media, see Sharma (2015), ‘An Arrested Eye: Trauma and Becoming in Desire Machine Collective’s Documentary Installations’, in Aparna Sharma, Documentary Films in India: Critical Aesthetics at Work (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 107–133.
- 5.
It is held that Shiva’s first wife, Sati, immolated herself on hearing the false news of her husband’s death. When Shiva learned of the immolation, he descended from his celestial abode, enraged, to retrieve Sati’s charred body from earth. As he carried her remains back to heaven, fifty-one parts of Sati’s body fell across fifty-one spots in India, each becoming a sacred pilgrimage site. According to this narrative, Sati’s female organs fell where the Kamakhya shrine now stands (Shastri 1991, pp. 164–177).
- 6.
Phookan, N. (2007), Selected Poems of Nilmani Phookan, translated from Assamese by Krishnadulal Barua (Guwahati, India: Sahitya Akademi).
- 7.
Kamakha includes two other artists: a local carpenter who makes wooden models of the Kamakhya Temple, using left-over wood from his workshop, and a female musician who dedicates her singing to Goddess Kamakhya.
- 8.
The governments of India and the state of Assam have initiated a few programmes to support and promote Assamese weaving. A common critique of these programmes is that they encourage semi-industrial modes of production that do not integrate traditional methods of weaving.
References
Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (2007). Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Aumont, J. (1997). The Image (trans. Clare Pajackowska). London: BFI.
Baruah, S. (2005). A New Politics of Race: India and Its Northeast. IIC Quarterly, 32(2–3), 165–176.
Baruah, S. (2011). India Against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality (6th ed.). New Delhi: Oxford University.
Baruah, S. (2012). Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of Northeast India (5th ed.). New Delhi: Oxford University.
Bhuyan, D. (2007). A World of Changing Views: Tezpur District Mahila Samiti and Its Work with Women and Communities of Northeast India. Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of Doctor of Psychology, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA.
Bruzzi, S. (2006). New Documentary (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Elsaesser, T., & Hagener, M. (2010). Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses. New York: Routledge.
Goswami, P. (1995). Festivals of Assam. Guwahati, India: Anundooram Borooah Institute of Language, Art and Culture.
Grimshaw, A., & Ravetz, A. (2009). Observational Cinema: Anthropology, Film, and the Exploration of Social Life. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Kakati, B. K. (2004). The Mother Goddess Kamakhya. Guwahati, India: Lawyer’s Book Stall.
Kosambi, D. D. (1975). An Introduction to the Study of Indian History. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan.
MacDougall, D. (2006). The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography and the Senses. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Marks, L. (2002). The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment and the Senses. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Phookan, N. (2007). Selected Poems of Nilmani Phookan (trans. from Assamese by Krishnadulal Barua). Guwahati, India: Sahitya Akademi.
Renov, M. (Ed.). (1993). Theorising Documentary. New York: Routledge.
Sharma, A. (1999). Assam: What is the Story? Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of BA (Hons) Journalism, University of Delhi.
Sharma, A. (2015). Documentary Films in India: Critical Aesthetics at Work. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Shastri, B. (1991). The Kalika Purana: Sanskrit Text, Introduction and Translation in English (Vol. 3). New Delhi: Nag Publishers.
Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2nd ed.). London: Zed Books; Dunedin, NZ: Otago University.
Sonwalkar, P. (2004). Mediating Otherness: India’s English-Language Press and The Northeast. Contemporary South Asia, 13(4), 398–402.
Sonwalkar, P. (2005). Banal Journalism: The Centrality of the Us–Them Binary in News Discourse. In S. Allan (Ed.), Journalism: Critical Issues (pp. 261–273). Maidenhead, UK: Open University.
Thapar, R. (2000). Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History. New Delhi: Oxford University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sharma, A. (2018). Practices of Making as Forms of Knowledge: Creative Practice Research as a Mode of Documentary Making in Northeast India. In: Batty, C., Kerrigan, S. (eds) Screen Production Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62837-0_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62837-0_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-62836-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-62837-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)