The pandemic has changed the way in which we look at our life and surroundings. The sudden pause in our daily hustle-bustle also shaped how we perceive the things around us. It made life challenging and uncertain. Encountering news about deaths has become a regular affair in our daily lives since the pandemic happened. The daily bread earners, artists, artisans throughout the world didn’t know how to survive as the social distancing norms of the pandemic didn’t allow any gathering. The performance shows stopped for a long time, for the visual artists, there were no buyers, no exhibitions. The innumerable artisans who practice traditional art forms didn’t know how to survive.

Gurupada Chitrakar, who was one of the most renowned artisans from the Patachitra artist community, is acclaimed internationally for his artwork. We fondly remember him making a song on the coronavirus and the pandemic during the first wave when we were all utterly unsettled. He shared how the situation stopped his earnings. We understood that even after being an internationally acclaimed artist, the pandemic didn’t spare him. Despite being in touch with him almost regularly, we didn’t know that he was affected by the virus. And, then one day we got to know about his sudden demise. That was an eye opener for us and forced us to think about an organization that works for artisans. 

B-CAF, denotes ‘Bridging Culture and Art Foundation’, is an initiative for the communities. We make positive changes by working as a bridge between Artists, Communities and urban population to foster Social Inclusion, Economic Growth and Inclusive Education. 

The Values of B-CAF are Honesty, Inclusiveness, Empowerment, Collaboration, and Stewardship. These are the foundation of our organization and we strive to uphold them in everything we do. We believe that honesty is the cornerstone of trust, respect, and accountability. We embrace diversity and inclusion and work to create an environment where all individuals feel welcome and respected. Our team is dedicated to taking ownership of their own lives and working together towards common goals. We are committed to being good stewards of our resources, both financial and environmental. Our values guide us as we work to make a difference in our community.

Through our works, we aim to build sustainable development in art and amongst artisans. We incorporate the intensive workshops on skill development for the artisans for their capacity building both for the arts and their lifestyle. The artisans, though extraordinarily profound with their works, seem to be creating repetitive style of works which limits the market for them.  We therefore create possibilities for collaboration between designers and artisans so that design interventions can happen and their art can have a sustainable life along with the artisans.  We remain mindful, that such intervention should not adversely affect the originality of their art form.

The two verticals of B-CAF are Community Leadership Program and Arts Connect. 

The Community Leadership Program aims to provide decent work, foster innovation, promote sustained and inclusive economic growth by Building Leadership and Entrepreneurship within the communities. 

• We are engaging with the communities for the development of their art practices through design interventions and other capacity building programs alongside that we work with them to Build Leadership and Entrepreneurship among them, this creates possibilities for decent work opportunities through traditional art practices. 

• The design and other capacity building interventions foster innovation, promotes sustained and inclusive Economic growth in line with SGD Goal 8. 

Through Arts Connect Program, B-CAF aims to connect with different communities to use art as a tool of transformation. Arts connect with Non-Arts offering Inclusive education without scaling down Artistic value in the creation and/or expression in line with SDG Goal 4.

B-CAF creates space for people who are keen to work with communities to make a sustainable development and ring changes in life and livelihood.