KOCHI: Kollavarsham 1200. Succinctly put, that’s the theme of photographer Jinson Abraham’s latest project. As Kerala witnessed a new dawn with Malayalam Kollavrasham marking another century, Jinson wanted to do one thing — to pay homage to the rich heritage of this small coastal state. And what is a better theme than one deeply entrenched in its roots, however, almost extinct?
The editorial fashion photographer set out on a new passion project — recreating the Malayalam calendar in the ancient Malayalam script, Vattezhuthu, and tracing and celebrating the legacy of coir.
It all started while Jinson was grappling with the unprecedented lockdown brought down by Covid. Fortunately, this uncertainty led to the genesis of a one-of-a-kind project. “It was a test project called Kollavarsham 1199. The objective was to revive our old traditions of timekeeping — the Kollavarsham calendar and the script Vattezhuthu,” he says,
Interestingly, this year marks the turning of the next century, 1200. Jinson embraced it as a sign to make way for his new project, ‘Kollavarsham 1200,’ but with a sub-theme of the coir yarns.
Jinson’s muses are women, whose facial expressions range from blank to feeble smiles. While coir, the golden fibre, has been instrumental in boosting Kerala’s economy, it was the women labourers who did most of the hard work — from retting, to dehusking and spinning the fibres by hand. “However, we are not stating anything through these frames. Let the viewers incite discussions,” Jinson explains.
The almanac, thoroughly detailed with Indo-Arabic numerals and Vattezhuthu script, is painted by Kerala’s finest billboard artists who took approximately three weeks to complete the work. Jinson has used the photographs of these original paintings for the desktop calendars.
The theme of ‘back to the roots’ has always been in Jinson’s mind. Soon, the idea developed into a conceptual project with a team of artists, including Blodsow V S the creative associate. The idea behind incorporating the theme of coir was suggested by Habela Joseph, a new graduate from the National Institute of Fashion and Design (NIFT), who is the costume designer and stylist of the team. “The months in the Kollavarsham are intermingled with the agricultural cycle and traditional festivals, and we decided to represent each with corresponding pictures,” she says.
The first Malayalam month Chingam is adorned with a photograph of a woman wearing traditional handloom attire carrying ‘thengin pookulla’ or coconut flower, mostly used for ornamental purposes during auspicious events. “I wanted to normalise the use of these flowers. It need not be only used for festive occasions,” she says.
In a simple, unadorned white attire, a silhouette of the model appears in the photo. The pleats are inspired by the Mohiniyattam costume, however, not a single strand of kasavu is used anywhere in the clothing. “We are celebrating minimalism with the portrayal of traditional workers in the coir industry,” she explains.
In the following frames, Habela blends the traditional with the modern and functional, such as pockets and gloves made by ‘kaavi mundu’ worn by another model. Here, she endeavours to blend innovation forced by functionality, a necessity for the harsh working conditions in the factories. All of these are captured by the expert eyes of Jinson.
According to Blodsow, here Jinson is moving away from the usual practices in fashion photography. “He employs minimalism in all aspects, whether it’s his small team or the fresh faces as models, or maintaining the essence of the theme — the rich legacy of our traditional timekeeping practices and coir,” Blodsow explains.
“These are not vector images,” he points to the calendar pages. “But original photographs of the paintings done by the artists. Painting is an image, the image of an image itself speaks a lot,” he says.
The project is exhibited at Durbar Hall in Kochi, which will conclude on August 31