Artist Priyanka Aelay Partners With Katha & Kin' on Folk Documentary

Hyderabad artist Priyanka Aelay has collaborated with Katha & Kin' on a new documentary project titled The Mystical Mirror, exploring South Indian folklore, heritage, and oral traditions through contemporary art and research. For Aelay, the fluidity of storytelling rooted in nature, Indian heritage, and folk traditions has become an integral part of her broader creative practice.

The documentary explores how traditional stories travel across generations to find new lives in paintings, films, and contemporary interpretations, examining how folklore can be reimagined through an artist's perspective. At the heart of the project is an artwork derived from Balanagamma (Janapada Katha), a South Indian folk story that Aelay researched and interpreted in her own artistic style.

This reinterpretation also gave Aelay an opportunity to look at traditional characters and their roles from a different perspective. Her artwork focuses on an episode from the folk story where the villain looks into a mirror and asks for the most beautiful woman, which then reveals the heroine. Through this scene, Aelay examined and sought to depict how the male and female gaze operates throughout the narrative.

The collaboration between the artist and Katha & Kin' originated through an unexpected online interaction after Aelay reshared one of the organisation's videos on her social media account. Katha & Kin' subsequently reached out because they were interested in capturing her artistic journey, finding common ground where their shared ideas met around preserving historic stories.

Beyond detailing the specific artwork, the documentary follows Aelay's broader artistic practice, documenting her research process and artistic interpretation from beginning to end while also presenting footage of her working within her own studio space.

Aelay noted that her connection to these narratives began long before her formal artistic career, recalling that she was exposed to subjects related to Indian history, mythology, and folk narratives from a very young age through her father.

Emphasising that changing times require new methods of cultural preservation, Aelay highlighted that modern adaptations are the need of the hour. She noted that presenting heritage through varied forms such as videos, storytelling, visual art, music, and dance is essential to connect with younger generations and ensure these art forms survive for a long time.