SHIVARAPATNA STONE CRAFT IN KARNATAKA - EXPLORING THE TRANSFORMATIVE ROLE OF INNOVATION IN TRADITIONAL HANDICRAFT AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

Handicraft sector is one of the most sustainable product sectors, because of the consumption of untreated raw materials received unswervingly from the nature. In many developing countries like India, there are a large number of livelihoods depending on handicraft business with an anticipated 17.79 million artisans associated with the sector in the year 2022. The previous studies indicate the relation between the handicrafts and innovation is both controversial and imperative. It is suggested that the sector must undergo incremental innovation for growth and survival in the present times. On contrary there are studies which dispute, considering cultural traditions as barriers to innovation. Innovation may be introduced in the technologies aiding to create the craft. While bringing innovation within the craft techniques and product creation might hinder its cultural identity. Innovation being one of the prime keyword of the 9th goal of the SDGs, the goal of this research is to study how introducing innovation in cultural craft production affects the identity of the traditional handicraft. For the findings, rapid ethnography was performed for the exquisite Shivarapatna stone craft. The craft uses ancient knowledge of Shilpashashtra to hand-craft the intricate Hindu idol statues from granite, and the associated community and the craftsmen are situated in the Kolar district of Karnataka, India. An experiment will be conducted to diversify the stone made craft products to analyse the outcome. The representational difference of the traditional craft products and the innovative craft products are then compared and presented with images. In addition to the comparative analysis, methodology also focuses on the descriptive approach in the handicraft.