From Earth to Inhabited Space: Life Cycle of Mud Plastering in the Tribal Agricultural Landscape of Jharkhand

CHC is pleased to share that Dr. Gauri Bharat, Jayashree Bardhan, and Ankita Toppo have been awarded the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme Grant (EMKP) 2025, supported by the British Museum and Arcadia.  

Their project ‘From Earth to Inhabited Space: Life Cycle of Mud Plastering in the Tribal Agricultural Landscape of Jharkhand’ is one of the 6 large grants awarded, of a total of 21 new projects of the EMKP 2025 cohort. 

Dr Gauri Bharat is the Principal Investigator of the project. Jayashree Bardhan and Ankita Toppo are the Co-Investigators. Center for Heritage Conservation, CEPT Research and Development Foundation (CHC, CRDF) is the host organisation for the grant. CHC’s ongoing collaboration with Tata Steel Foundation (TSF) will be continued through this project.

The project will document the endangered material knowledge system of ‘mud plastering’ in the tribal agricultural settlements in the Kolhan Division of Jharkhand in India. The documentation will focus on two tribes ‘Santhals and Hos’, who employ elaborate and distinct techniques and rituals of working with different types of naturally coloured clay and admixtures sourced from the surrounding landscape to plaster surfaces of their lived spaces.

The documentation will carry forward Dr. Bharat’s previous scholarly research on Santhal habitats in the region. It will also build on Jayashree Bardhan’s previous supervision of Directed Research Projects on the region’s material heritage and cultural landscapes conducted through CHC-TSF collaboration.

More information is available on the EMKP website.