The Ambedkar Age Digital Bookmobile
Documentation and archive of the Ambedkarite anti caste oral tradition of Maharastra
Website – https://ambedkarbookmobile.com/
FICA website – https://ficart.org/ambedkar-age-digital-bookmobile
The Ambedkar Digital Bookmobile is a project conceived by public intervention artist, performer and educator Smita Rajmane and documentary filmmaker Somnath Waghmare. It aims to collect Maharashtra’s long history of social reform, accessing 400-500 year-old traditions of song-writing, performances and poetry against caste-based exploitation and untouchability. It is a history that speaks with multiple voices ranging from Saint Tukaram, Saint Chokhamela and Vamandada Karadk to contemporary, popular singers like Adarsh Shinde. The project seeks to document singers and artists who mostly hail from the rural interiors and are not very well known around the urban spaces of Maharashtra. The singers have been singing anti-caste songs for many decades. Every year they perform at different gatherings such as the one held at Chaityabhumi Dadar on the occasion of Ambedkar’s death anniversary observed as Mahaparinirvan Din on the 6th of December, Deekshabhoomi Nagpur on the 14th of October, Bhima Koregaon on the 1st of January, Mahad on the 20th of March etc.
“The Ambedkar Age Digital Bookmobile”, Live Ambedkarite songs performances and discussion with singer Sakhubai Salave, Poster, ongoing project.
Through the documentation of these embodied histories of anti-caste resistance, the project seeks to raise awareness around contemporary Dalit popular and political song-performances within the community. With the aim of encouraging discussion and dialogue, the bookmobile will travel to a variety of public spaces including educational institutions, community halls, gardens and libraries in both urban and rural areas. Imagining the ‘digital bookmobile’ as a portable multimedia archive with the potential to navigate distances and cultures of resistance with economical means, Smita and Somnath hope to catalyse new avenues of understanding and meaning around the documentation of ephemeral elements of performance, songs and poetry. This project has received the FICA public art grant in 2019.
