Heritage festival celebrates ethnic products

Visitors get a behind-the-scene peek into the making and the eco-friendly ethos, says co-organiser

A host of home-grown brands in art and crafts, textile, architecture and jewellery showcased their products at the “Made in Pondy” exhibition as part of the eighth Pondicherry Heritage Festival. The expo at Kariappa House courtyard brought together the pioneer brand Hidesign and evolving ones like Lal Design Studio, Wunderhaus handloom street wear, Hibiscus Heroes, a plant-based clothing enterprise, 2B2 that brings out hand-painted silk, Mamai which had newly branched into jewellery. The event is different from the typical B2C expo. “We are not showcasing products, but giving visitors a behind-the-scene peek into the making and the eco-friendly ethos”, said Bidisha Samantaray, co-organiser and proprietor of Lal Design Studio, which specialises in contemporary block prints. The show is about people and processes as much as the products themselves. In fact, anyone interested can even try their hand at making a block-print pattern on a piece of fabric, she said. The PHF 2022, which began on March 4 on the theme, “Celebrating the natural, cultural and built heritage of the bio-region” concludes at the same venue on Sunday with a dance performance by Anita Ratnam.