Interactive Textile Toy Celebrating Bhutanese Fable by Priya Pakad at Coroflot.com

Interactive Textile Toy Celebrating Bhutanese Fable

Interactive Textile Toy Celebrating Bhutanese Fable from Priya Pakad

Interactive Textile Toy Celebrating Bhutanese Fable

Bhutan is famous for its cultural identity and its measures to preserve and promote its rich heritage. As a part of a project brief, products were to be developed for a Museum souvenir shop which would allow the tourists to take back home a bit of Bhutan with them.

The state religion of Bhutan is Buddhism and an integral part of Buddhism is the
Jataka Tales. Bhutan also has its own set of folklore adapted from the Jataka Tales. One of the very famous ones is 'THE FOUR HARMONIOUS FRIENDS' or ‘Mthun pa spun bzhi’- that of an elephant, rabbit, monkey and a bird. I personally have grown up reading Jataka tales and I immediately fell in love with the innocence of the tale and decided to develop a textile based interactive toy that communicates this fable and its morals to children in a fun and interesting manner. Apart from the story in the form of six illustrations, the toy celebrates the traditional applique technique employed in the making of Buddhist Thangka paintings.

The state religion of Bhutan is Buddhism and an integral part of Buddhism is the Jataka Tales, which is a collection of parables used by the Buddha and his followers to teach morals and wisdom of Buddhism. Bhutan also has its own set of folklore adapted from the Jataka Tales. One of the very famous ones is THE FOUR HARMONIOUS FRIENDS or ‘Mthun pa spun bzhi’- that of an elephant, rabbit, monkey and a bird. This is seen in the form of paintings almost everywhere in Bhutan, popularly known as ‘Thuenpa Puen Zhi”.

The Thunpa Punshi is often painted to adorn thangkas, door curtains, tables, vessels and walls of Buddhist temples and homes. It is believed that wherever this picture is displayed, the wholesome deeds of its beholders and the harmonyamong them will increase, making much auspiciousness available. I studied the examples of different representations of this story in Bhutan and other places and came across a use of wide array of materials and different styles of illustrations.

I began by taking references for the story illustrations. The overall style is inspired from the traditional Buddhist art form called Thangka. These religious paintings are an important part of the Buddhist culture and have a very distinct style. But the inspiration has to be an abstraction and not a copy of a thangka painting. Hence I began by keeing the characters more contemporary in nature, so that children from any part of the world could relate to them. But to retain the Thangkainfluence, I stayed true to their traditional way of drawing the landscape, such as plants, clouds, water, etc. The colour palette was also derived from the Thangka paintings.

I divided the story into six frames for the story boarding and went through the process of illustrating each character and composing each frame.

To translate the elements into textiles, I explored different techniques, like embroidery, flat applique, stuffed applique, hand painting, tie-dye,etc., and tried to create a hierarchy using them. The background was ombré dyed, followed by thelandscape elements being painted. The elements in the foreground were flat appliqued or embroidered and the characters were done in stuffed applique. During a visit to McLeodganj, I happened to visit the Norbulingka Institute, where I learnt the technique of applique used traditionally in Thangka. I decided to use this technique of appliqueing as its their indigenous technique and would give the feel of Buddhist culture.

The final product is that of an interactive toy, for children of ages 3-5 years, by which the story is expressed in a pictorial manner. The toy consists of nine stuffed cubes of cloth, which have to be placed together by the child to form one complete picture. Each cube has one part of the picture and when put together in the correct order, like a puzzle, the picture gets complete. The entire story is narrated through six picture frames. Each face of each cube has a part of each picture frame, thus making the child turn the faces of all the cubes each time to make a new picture frame. This way, by challenging the child’s mind, he/she learns the story in a progressive manner and hence has fun while retaining the story in his/her mind.