69th Year MSL Trophy Brief Decode Session

Summary

The session decodes the 69th-year MSL Trophy theme, “Land, Lore, and Landscape,” and introduces cultural landscapes as the interaction between land, people, ecology, memory, and everyday practice.

Central Ideas

• Landscape is more than scenery or a designed open space. It is shaped by natural systems and human activity; historically, landscapes have shaped human life as well.
• “Land, lore, and landscape” can be understood as:
  • Land: Terrain, water, soil, vegetation, and other physical systems.
  • Lore: Stories, beliefs, memories, and knowledge associated with a place.
  • Landscape: The place and way of life that emerge through their interaction.
• Cultural landscapes have tangible and intangible dimensions. Rivers, mountains, groves, settlements, shrines, and materials are tangible. Stories, taboos, rituals, and inherited knowledge are intangible. These dimensions work together.
• Practices are often situated. Their meaning and operation may depend on specific resources, communities, materials, seasons, and locations. Removing one element can disrupt the whole practice.
• Landscapes contain layers of history. Migration, colonization, belief, ecology, livelihood, and settlement may overlap over time. The speaker uses the idea of a palimpsest: layers that accumulate and become difficult to separate.
• Local, everyday culture matters—not only famous religious sites or major festivals. Food, farming, seasonal routines, building methods, household customs, and small community traditions can all reveal relationships with land.
• Ecology is a key part of interpretation. Beliefs and customary rules can help protect water sources, groves, species, and other resources. However, a longstanding practice can become ecologically harmful as conditions change. Participants may document and question such effects, but are not expected to produce a complete solution.
• The trophy is primarily an inquiry and documentation exercise, not a conventional design assignment. A design or conservation proposal is not required. The emphasis is on understanding and representing a landscape and its stories.

Examples Used in the Workshop

• A sacred mountain and terracotta horse offerings near Poshina: A deity is believed to protect nearby villages. People traditionally offered horses; later, they began offering terracotta versions made by local potters using material from a nearby river. The mountain, river, trees, potters, community, and ritual all contribute to the practice.
• A Konkan shrine and sacred grove: A shrine and associated beliefs help safeguard a grove and its natural springs, which supply water to a village. Customs and restrictions around the grove are presented as part of its community-based management.
• Goa and migration during Portuguese rule: A layered account connects colonization, people moving into forests, the movement of deities, and the resulting settlements and sacred places.
• Indigenous and local practices: Examples include construction using locally gathered materials, adapting farming to changing river levels, and traditions tied to seasons and species.
• Seasonal river and fishing practices: The workshop discusses how local communities’ relationships with rivers and fishing seasons can reflect ecological knowledge. These examples are prompts for investigation, not ready-made explanations to apply uncritically.

Suggested Approach for Participants

• Start with curiosity rather than a predetermined conclusion. Do not assume you already know the full story or decide in advance what the drawings will say.
• Choose a manageable subject. It could be a village tradition, seasonal activity, river, grove, food practice, local belief, or network of connected settlements. The geographical scale is flexible; choose it according to the story and your team’s capacity.
• Look for connections between practice and place. Ask what resources, landforms, materials, species, seasons, routes, or community roles make the practice possible.
• Investigate the story from multiple angles.
  • Speak with people of different ages and, where appropriate, different communities.
  • Compare accounts rather than assuming there is only one version.
  • Use local knowledge, site observations, photographs, sketches, maps, films, literature, archives, and other records as relevant.
  • If you cannot visit the site, research from other sources is acceptable; clearly identify where the account comes from. A visit or primary research is preferred when feasible, but is not compulsory.
• Respect the people whose knowledge you are documenting. Build trust, listen, and approach conversations with genuine interest rather than imposing your own interpretation.
• Trace the landscape system. Relate a specific place to its larger setting and identify relevant resource boundaries—for example, where a forest meets fields, how water flows through a settlement, or what area supports a local livelihood.
• Unpack layers carefully. Consider how ecology, history, migration, belief, occupation, material practices, and present-day change intersect.
• Interpret rather than simply repeat a story. Connect the narrative to the physical landscape and, where appropriate, investigate possible ecological or material explanations. Distinguish what people say, what you observe, and what you infer.
• Represent the findings graphically. The final work should communicate the story visually, using maps, sections, diagrams, sketches, or other graphic forms. Detailed technical or measured drawings, a fixed documentation scale, and government statistics are not required. Local lore and narratives are central.
• Make room for complexity. Different groups may tell different versions of the same lore. A practice may support a landscape in one context and create problems in another. Do not force every example into a simple “good practice” or a single definitive account.
• Do not design solely to satisfy a jury. Prioritize careful investigation, clear visual communication, and an honest account of the place. A proposal may be included if it seems necessary, but it is optional.

Speakers and Sources Mentioned

Speakers

• Rupak S. Kalyanpur — MSL Trophy representative at NASA India; opened and closed the session.
• Shilpa Chandawarkar — ISOLA representative; explained the trophy’s intent and answered questions.
• Prasanna Mattikop — Workshop tutor; presented the cultural-landscape examples and research approach. The subtitles render his surname inconsistently.
• Maithili Velangi — Introduced as ISOLA’s honorary secretary and contributed to the discussion. The subtitles also render her name as “Maitri.”

Other sources and examples referenced

• The Indian Society of Landscape Architects (ISOLA) and NASA India.
• The web series Kaala Paani and Marathi film Shauktar, recommended as examples for thinking about cultural landscapes.
• Landscape and cultural examples from Poshina, Konkan, Goa, the Western Ghats, Belgaum, and the Narmada region.
• Indian art forms including Warli, Madhubani, and Patachitra, mentioned as inspiration for visual representation.