Dinesh Soni, a third-generation National Award-winning artist from Bhilwara, Rajasthan, is an expert in the 17th-century Pichwai art.
His studio is in Bhilwara. Before the initiative Bridge Bharat, he would never have thought that his elaborate Pichwai paintings would now be traceable through a QR code that maps the provenance of the artwork and would tell details about its authenticity, creator information, materials used in the creation, its history and other contextual details.
Similarly, Padma Shri Lalita Vakil, an embroidery artist from Himachal Pradesh, known for her intricate designs on Chamba Rumal created ‘Das Avtar’, which has a digital code that traces the provenance of her work. Customers will also now know that she is the first woman who introduced silk in creating large masterpieces of Chamba Rumal.
Like Soni and Vakil, 50 artist families and 80 traditional artworks from India have been archived and traced for provenance by Delhi-NCR-based Bridge Bharat. It includes ancient Assamese manuscripts, masks from the world’s largest river island of Majuli, Pichwais from Rajasthan, Chamba Rumal of Himachal Pradesh,
Sikh miniature works, Bihar’s Madhubani art, Thanjavur sculptures of Tamil Nadu and Phad Chitra of Rajasthan, amongst others. The creative director and founder of Bridge Bharat, Aakanksha Singh, felt the need to “formalise” the traditional art space by building a bridge-to-luxury platform where she can preserve India’s legacy in arts with the help of technology.
“There are around 4,000 such unique ancient art forms in India scattered across the country. It is difficult to find artists and curate such works. Another problem is there is no particular system to trace the provenance of such traditional artworks, many of which are lost as they do not have artists’ signatures. Further, with an increased commercial interest in traditional art forms, the number of intermediates, replicas, forgeries and counterfeits of original pieces has significantly increased, making it difficult to trace the original piece,” she says on why she started Bridge Bharat.
“Our archival process here involves finding these artist families, reaching out to them directly (who are still holding these works as heirlooms) and documenting any photographs or paperwork that can help with provenance tracing. This completely bypasses the intermediaries and creates traceable ‘digital passports’ of these works using blockchain technology.”
A passion for art
“My orientation towards art has come from childhood experiences of being in different states,” says Singh who belongs to a family in the defence forces. “It exposed me to local language, architecture, folk art, music, cuisine and oral traditions.” The Indian Institute Of Management alumna eventually settled in Delhi in 2010. At a previous job, she had to do a valuation analysis of artworks by Raja Ravi Varma and MF Husain. While the provenance of contemporary art was traceable, she realised that was not the case with folk or traditional art.
Before starting Bridge Bharat in 2022, Singh spent two years building a relationship with artists from across India. “I remember the first message that I got on Instagram was from Lokesh Joshi, a Phad artist from Bhilwara. He has been pursuing Phad art since the age of 10 under the tutelage of his parents Kanhaiya Lal Joshi and Parvathy Devi Joshi, the first female Phad artist. I went to meet him in Rajasthan. He further gave me references for other artist clusters in Rajasthan. That is how I got to know about a unique and lesser-known Molela terracotta craft which is not documented anywhere. These references are the best way to discover a languishing art-form,” she says.
Tech-aided provenance
Today, Bridge Bharat has partnered with artists from 18 states of India. While Singh speaks to many artists, she curates the work of only five or six of them. “We check the quality of the artwork and the artist’s signature. If the signature is absent, we look for photographic evidence to ensure its authenticity and origin.
We then register the works with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as a requirement in order to trade in antiquities. If anyone wants to buy these artworks, we give them a certificate of authenticity. It is not a piece of paper, but we are mapping it on a blockchain where all certificates are signed digitally, to make the art piece an NFT.”
Singh wants to promote more custodians of art. What’s her target customer base like? “We cater to luxury buyers who seek authentic artworks. Most of the time they do not look for resale value. In fact, they want to own it to decorate their homes and spaces or keep it as an heirloom piece for the next generation.
And since I have the technology to create such digital passports of the art, I want to give the world a gen-next way to interact with Indian art.” In future, Singh wants to include sculptures and murals in Bridge Bharat’s repertoire while also intending to incorporate traditional art forms in luxury lighting, and jewellery.