Sanyasi Lohar

Sanyasi Charan Rana Lohar is an artist and educator from the Santal community in West Bengal. Born in 1972 in Bishnubati, he pursued an education in fine arts at Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati University, completing his diploma and post-diploma in 2001. Lohar’s career includes significant cultural exchanges, including a tour through Germany and Austria with a Santal group, where he showcased his paintings and batiks. His exhibitions have travelled across countries, with solo shows in Germany and Kolkata, and he has participated in various international workshops. Notably, he founded the Ashadullapur Gramin Silpa & Sastha Bidhan Kendra to support local artisans and traditional crafts. Lohar's work integrates community engagement and cultural preservation, and he is pivotal to the promotion of Santal art and heritage. He has earned numerous accolades, including a merit scholarship from VASI in Berlin.

Mithu Sen, in collaboration with Sanyasi Lohar and his team, brings the Santali script into the landscape of a Santal village in a gesture that is both gentle and defiant. The work is not only a mural on mud walls; it is a reclamation, a reassertion of cultural identity in a world where linguistic invisibility has become a silent form of erasure.(..)

– (excerpt) Curator’s Note; I am Ol Chiki

Pearson Palli

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Nov 29, 24- Dec 8, 24

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