The Museum of Man is orgnaising a workshop ‘Mrid-akaar’ of Manipur.

This is an attempt to explore the indigenous craft of pottery from the North-east India.

In the first phase, fourteen potter artists from Manipur are demonstrating their exquisite work of hand-made pottery in the museum premises.

Artists from Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura will be attending the workshop in the second phase in the month of February, 2016.

The art of handmade pottery involves a distinct craftsmanship when we compare to the wheel made pottery. Wheel made pottery characterised by the crafting of clay over the rotating wheel while handmade pottery uses unique kind of beating and polishing tools and the potter moves around the clay to shape the pot. One can see the beautiful hand gestures applied in transforming the clay into beautiful pots.

Manipur, an Indian State to the outside world for rich cultural manifestation and music, dance, songs and theatre has a strong belief system and traditions that are reflected in many of its traditional practices. One of them is pottery.

Chakparol- the ancient manuscript mentions that pottery craft or the ancient art of making pottery was conceived from the thalamus of flower locally known as Nura Khudonglei.

In the old manuscript leirol (an ancient manuscript dealing with clay) the flower was described morphologically and tells how the flower came to be known as Nura Khudonglei.

In the central Manipur valley Pottery craft is practiced in the Chairel, Thongjao and Nongpok Sekmai villages. These three villages in thoubal district were well known in the past for their unique style of red-ware pottery.

The potters of Chairel, Nongpok Sekmai and Thongjao use leitan (black clay) and Nungjreng (Sand) as tempering material to produce their red wares. The materials are found in their locality.

The potters of these three villages mix the clay with nungjreng in an equal ratio to prepare good paste for producing strong and durable pots.