Some notes gathered at SID bamboo craft workshop`

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Not too many words are here, except to appreciate a good design which enabled an opportunity for a plenty. In other words, the exercise went on for a couple weeks, with twenty-five craftsmen and another twenty-five students, and open to visitors, experts, and ideas, which should create further a countless learning opportunities. At School of Interior Design, CEPT, the workshop here gave some interesting directions to search for the meaning of ‘sustainability’ through hands on craft and exchange.

I could gather a few things with my random visits, perhaps research oriented, and I would like to share.

Most materials expand on heating. When bamboo is exposed to higher temperature conditions, one way is by putting it under a flame, the material’s molecules would move apart, therefore, allowing ease in bending. The bamboo craftsmen may like this. A design student who made me understand this, said,

“They say, this bamboo strip usually cracks when bent under fire, but see, you go slow about it and this does not." showing me the perfect bend.

The technology student was even more creative. After discussing with him no-life in the outer space and no oxygen therefore zero flammability, he was quick to add,

“If left in space, bamboo may take a free form on its own.” He did his best to make his eye, face and hand gestures all like that of a free form.

There were many other revisions.

Another point we take lightly, perhaps we must consider, is the health issue when bamboo is tempted to cut finely under rapid rotors and as a result genate dust. Smoothinly hummin rotor bladed machines- some fixed, some handheld, will produce dust like particles which fly all over. The air was so dusty with grains that things looked like a live 1600 ASA print. The bamboo grains I consumed through my nostrils most, smelt fresher an not toxic- well, sometimes, toxic smells nice too, but this smelt nicer. ‘The smell of freshly cut grass…’, as Richie Havens (Woodstock fame below) says, reminded me of the bamboo work small communities in rural India continue to do with bamboo saw dust floating in air, all around and about, humming their own folk tunes.