Ashrita Achar

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will facilitate research towards creation of an audio-guide for the Rani Abbakka Tulu Nadu Museum. Focusing on the collection of the museum, the audio guide seeks to create an immersive walkthrough of the museum. It will take the visitor through multiple sections of the museum – with specific tours and stops curated based on categorisation of artefacts. Objects for the tour will be selected based on their historical significance and interesting associated oral histories. This project is in collaboration with Rani Abbakka Tulu Nadu Museum in Bantwal, Karnataka. The museum is dedicated to preserving and showcasing the rich cultural heritage of Tulu Nadu. Named after the queen Rani Abbakka, who valiantly fought against Portuguese colonialism, the museum is a tribute to her legacy and the lush history of Tulu Nadu. Founded and curated by a retired history Professor Dr Thukaram Poojary, the museum houses an extensive collection of artefacts and historical relics that tell the story of the region's past. In addition to the artefacts, the museum houses a library named after SU Paniyadi, a numismatics section, and an art gallery dedicated to Rani Abbakka. Ashrita Achar is the Project Coordinator for this project. 

Ashrita is an audio documentarian, writer and social scientist. She has experience of working across audio journalism and sound art. Her strengths lie in using multimedia to create a sensory and inclusive experience of socio-political information. She has worked as an associate producer for Vaka Media, where she was responsible for all stages of producing a podcast—from development, production and post-production—on shows such as City of Women, No Cost Extension, Grassroots Nation by Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and many others. In addition, Ashrita has undertaken archival research, editing and story boarding for an upcoming film project on the Bangladesh Liberation War and genocide. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Christ University, Bangalore and a Master’s degree in Applied Economics from WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. Given her work experience and creative interests, Ashrita is best suited to Project Coordinator for this Foundation Project of IFA. 

A visit to the Rani Abbaka Tulu Nadu Museum reveals an expansive yet intimate display of various objects—spanning from agricultural implements, to household items to objects of ritual and spiritual significance—along with an art gallery and a small section on numismatics. The rich history and the stories behind the collection however only come alive when a visitor is accompanied by the marvellous narration and a guided walkthrough of the museum by its founder Dr Thukaram Poojary. Ashrita through this project, to create an audio-guide for the museum seeks to address this gap in terms of museum experience, whereby a keen museum visitor will not have to solely depend on the presence or absence of a single museum personnel member. The audio-guide will increase accessibility to the knowledge that lives within the walls of the museum, making the museum experience enriching, engaging and independent. 

The vision of this project is to create a sonic experience for the visitor—taking them through the space and through objects that tell a comprehensive story about the rich history of Tulu Nadu. Ashrita in total will create seven and half hours of audio. Each audio tour will be of two and a half hours and will be recorded in three languages: English, Kannada and Tulu. The audio tour has been broken down into episodes, starting with an introductory film on the museum, followed by four episodes on—the section on household items, section on village life and history, linguistic section and numismatics section. For each of the audio tours, Ashrita will create a number of stops corresponding to an artefact from that section. These stops will be an opportunity for the listener to listen to the corresponding audio clip of that artefact. Each such audio clip will be two to three minutes long with sound design, explaining the history of the object, its significance in the community and its significance in the present time. The audio-stops will provide an intimate and immersive experience of the objects. Ashrita will make a selection of the artefacts based on her research and conversation with Dr Poojary during the pre-production phase. Apart from the audio-guide, in order to disseminate it, the Project Coordinator will create a series of audiograms for social media platforms. For these audiograms she will select six to nine object-specific clips from each tour to give online subscribers of the platforms a glimpse of the project, and introducing the museum to a new demographic.

Ashrita has divided her project term into pre-production and production phases. The first three months of the project term will be dedicated to on-site work, comprising visits to the museum, research and planning of the script. The next three three months will look at finalisation of the script, recording, editing and sound design. After this, Ashrita will test the audio-guides on-site and fine tune them. The final phase of the project will be for creating content for social media. 

The primary outcome of the project will be seven and half hours of audio exploring the collection housed on Soundcloud and YouTube. In addition, there will be audiograms for social media platforms. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA along with the final reports will be the audio files of the guide, an introductory film and the audiograms.

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This project is supported by Tata Trusts.