An exhibition exploring narrative scrolls, storytelling traditions, and vernacular image-making across Bengal and Jharkhand.

The exhibition brings together picture-making traditions from Bengal and Jharkhand through narrative scrolls and single-format images spanning three centuries. Featuring works from pattachitra and Santhal traditions, it explores how storytelling, performance, ritual, and everyday life intersect within these living practices.

Tracing the evolving responses of patuas to social and cultural change from the nineteenth century to the present, the exhibition also situates the practices of the Jadupatuas within the cultural and political histories of the Santhal community. Through these works, storytelling emerges not only as a visual form, but also as a performative and community-based practice shaped by changing historical and material conditions.

The exhibition further reflects on the introduction of mill-made paper in colonial Bengal and its influence on narrative image-making traditions. Alongside these histories, it explores modernist engagements with vernacular idioms through the works of artists such as Jamini Roy and Ramkinkar Baij, foregrounding the continuing dialogue between folk traditions and modern Indian art.