Participants and guests during the Lanna-Thailand and Nagaland wood-carving exchanging workshop held at NEZCC, Dimapur. (Morung Photo).
Morung Express News
Dimapur | November 7
A twelve-day Lanna-Thailand and Nagaland wood-carving exchanging workshop held at the North East Zone Cultural Center (NEZCC), Dimapur culminated on Thursday with MLA, Jwenga Seb gracing the occasion as the chief guest.
The workshop had been organised by organised by Chiang Mai University (CMU), Thailand in collaboration with NEZCC and saw fourteen Naga and Thai artists collaborate in creating nine unique wood carvings.
“Lanna in Thai means ‘many proviences’ or the Northern region of the country,” Wipawee Panjinda, PhD, Researcher at CMU explained. She said that the idea of the workshop had been to inculcate and fuse the two different styles into a single art form. Adding, “It had been a valuable opportunity for Naga and Thai artists to join hands together for this workshop.”
One of the challenges faced by the artists from Thailand, she remarked was the language barrier as they barely spoke English. Moreover, the inability to use machinery due to the lack of proper electricity supply also posed a huge hurdle for them to overcome, she said.
Another amusing point Panjinda mentioned was that ‘the teak wood in Nagaland is much harder,’ leading to the break-down of their tools during the first day of the workshop.
Nevertheless, the artists learned to create different motifs and learnt new techniques from each other techniques, she said.
During the cultural exchange, the group from Thailand also visited several tourist and cultural locations of Nagaland.
MLA, Jwenga Seb, chief guest for the event spoke on the importance of art as a form of expression of culture and ideas. Art and architecture has since time immemorial been a medium to communicate between different people across boundaries, he said.
He noted that, “when we look around, we can say that everything is art.” Implying that art can be abundantly found everywhere in nature.
As an architect turned politician, he shared on the wide scope of art as a profession and passion. With traditional art as the best form of art in existence. “We can say that art is a fulfillment and satisfaction for the soul. The art that we create is manifested through our imagination and dreams,” he viewed.
On the twelve-day long workshop, he mentioned that it was interesting and inspiring initiative to blend together the two different cultures.
The event also gave the artists opportunity to share the experiences they had at the workshop. Students from St Joseph’s University, Nagaland University and Unity College were in attendance during the closing day.
