Oran Project

by Nisha Paliwal and Sachin

Orans are traditionally managed community forests dedicated to local folk deities and characterized by a belief system that operates within a set of rules and regulations that govern their management and sustain pastoralist livelihoods. As a result of the colonial construction of spaces as ‘wasteland’ given their productivity in terms of capitalistic capacity, a large number of green energy projects are being developed on these lands threatening local ecological knowledge systems. Through a combination of lens-based art practices and text-based research, we seek to challenge this view by contributing to decolonise Orans.

We comprise a duo- an ethnographic researcher Nisha Paliwal and filmmaker Sachin jointly developing the Oran Project situated in Western Rajasthan. Over the last four years, we have extensively documented various elements and components that make an Oran what it is, which varies from folktales, performative rituals, songs, local ecological knowledge, oral histories etc in different forms such as images, audios and writings.

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