Revisioning Bithooras
2024 | Upla, gobar, bricks, unfired clay
Revisioning BIthooras celebrates bithooras, an extraordinary but overlooked feature of Delhi’s cityscape and cultural heritage. These elaborately decorated fuel stores are made entirely from cow dung. Unique intrusions of the rural within the city, bithooras are built slowly, only to be broken down to retrieve the uplas which are used for fuel.
This project focuses attention on these astonishing objects, and explores them in the context of contemporary art. Here, bithooras are reimagined through an artistic interaction between Lilian Nabulime from Uganda, British artist Andrew Burton and the bithoora makers – women from dairy farming communities around Delhi. Revisioning Bithooras explores how the juxtaposition of ‘earth’ and ‘clay’ elements and the relationship between architectural, functional and figurative form can have meaning and resonance in Delhi in 2024.
Revisioning Bithooras has been facilitated by RamDev
LILIAN NABULIME is a leading Kampala-based artist known for her wood carving and for her social sculpture tackling stigma around HIV AIDS. ANDREW BURTON is a British artist whose work explores themes of architecture, nature and heritage.
Nabulime and Burton have collaborated since 2015 on projects in Africa exploring ‘jua kali’ (which translates as under the sun), focussing on marginalised artisanal work. They have each shown their work internationally for over twenty years, winning many prestigious prizes and awards. For the Indian Ceramics Triennale, they will be collaborating with women from dairy farming communities around Mandi Village South Delhi who are experienced bithoora makers.
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