Move Behind Products: A Study on Crafts of Bangladesh

Move Behind Products: A Study on Crafts of Bangladesh

Behind Products: A Study on Crafts of Bangladesh(2004, ISBN 984-32-1887-9) is a research based book by Bangladeshi designer Chandra Shekhar Saha and architect Masrur Mamun Mithun. This bilingual book (Bengali and English, titled: Drobyer Antarale in Bengali) explores some of the design basics behind the traditional forms of many Bangladeshi crafts optimized through generations. Though focused on one specific geographical location (Bangladesh), the book studies the influence of context in the evolution of traditionally accepted crafts form, which can be a tool to study crafts from other cultures.

Key Concept

The Behind Products is an illuminating study of traditional crafts of rural Bangladesh, where the authors have cast their penetrating eyes on the varieties of utility objects, usually regarded as mundane and of peripheral necessity. The study goes not only deep into the design and manufacturing technique but also deals with the philosophical matrix which created the object in the imagination of the artisan before it became a handicraft. The successive stages of creation of a product where a lump of clay gradually took the shape of a finished pot with painted slips or a green bamboo went through splitting, bending and twisting producing a woven basket, are carefully documented. In the field of creativity, the artisan is not only concerned with the material and the technique, but carries a burden of the heritage to be continuously communicated to his clientele.

Key chapters

Chapter 2: Influential trio: geographical, social, religious influence

Chapter 3: evolution and immortality of products

Chapter 4: formation of product: function, material, aesthetic

Chapter 5: ornamentation