The Manganiyar Seduction "The Manganiyars are a group of hereditary professional folk musicians from Rajasthan, India."
posted by dhruva on Dec 24, 2010 - 4 comments

Back on August 15, 2010, Aesop Rock kicked off a sprawling collaboration effort, with input by 28 artists, with an eclectic collection of videos spanning from music videos to odd clips and a Kimya Dawson recording studio dance party, works by photographer Chrissy Piper, and lots of music, from unreleased tracks, remixes, and mixtapes. There's even a post about being manhandled by a nude model, written by the Dwarvs front-man Blag Dahlia. Going back to the beginning of the site, the second post was a collection of facts about bats, and the only obvious connection back to the tragic impetus for the title of this ongoing collaboration (900 bats) -- over 900 bats were torched to prevent disruption of work on the ongoing renovations of the historic Bala Quila (also spelled Bala Qila) fort in Alwar, Rajasthan, in north-eastern India. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Dec 16, 2010 - 4 comments

House of Happiness - photos by Rena Effendi of women in the Ferghana Valley, part of central Asia's ancient Silk Route now known as "the heroin highway" - "a geographical and cultural mishmash where three countries and many ethnicities cluster." More about the photos. (Some photos NSFW) [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Dec 17, 2009 - 14 comments

A rare glimpse into a forgotten Hindu world.
Garden and Cosmos - The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur. Virtually none of the 60 works on view in "Garden and Cosmos" have ever been published or seen by scholars since their creation centuries ago.
All paintings are from the Mehrangarh museum. ( whose links are also full of interest ). [more inside]
posted by adamvasco on Nov 29, 2008 - 5 comments