Located in the tri-junction of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, the peripheral region called ‘Northeast India’ is situated between a complex network of rivers, hills, and forests. Endless hills turn into flat fields, fields turn into forests, forests turn into habitats, and these habitats, in turn, produce specific knowledge systems and philosophies. Before the intrusion of colonial modernity in the region, we have seen, felt, and were part of various collective practices that existed in the form of rituals, occupations, architecture, and festivities. During the harvest seasons, farmers would offer help each other in their paddy fields as a gesture of collective sustenance. 

The slow death of these collective practices in the Indian subcontinent, especially in the North-Eastern region came as a result of the colonial knowledge system, which perceived and transformed the traditional consciousness. This advent of colonialism, not only altered the lives of communities in the region but also their artistic practices and aspirations. Ideas and practices of the collective, which was once a vital force of social life, are fading away into the dark recesses of memory. 

Modernism in the Northeast and the idea of the region While trying to trace the specific cultural undercurrents on which an aesthetic position in the northeast of India can be realized, one comes across a number of questions – 

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