The Messenger of Dawn
Ajay Marko | Achyut Siddu | Apoorva Mishra
The Messenger of Dawn reimagines a Pardhaan Gond oral tale through illustration. Created in collaboration with Pardhaan artist Ajay Marko, the book follows a peacock and a rooster as rival claimants to the role of announcing dawn. Beneath its lyrical narrative, the work reflects on the relationship between speech and image, asserting that oral storytelling remains central to the making and meaning of visual form.
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Book Details
ISBN: 978-81-975775-1-2
Pages: 40
Number of illustrations: 16
Size: 8.3 x 8.3" (210 x 210 mm), Hard cover
Date of Publishing: 2025
Language(s): English
Publisher(s): Loksutr Social LLP
Rights Available: World rights
About the author
Achyut Siddu
Achyut Siddu is an architect, writer, curator, and the co-founder of Loksutr. His practice brings together literary, ethnographic, and curatorial approaches to work with Indigenous communities in documenting and reimagining traditional knowledge systems. He is especially interested in how oral traditions can be shaped into contemporary visual and narrative forms without losing their cultural depth.
ABOUT THE Artist(s)
Ajay Marko
Ajay Marko is a Pardhaan artist hailing from the temple town of Amarkantak, Madhya Pradesh, India. Only 18 at the time of illustrating this story, Ajay fondly called as Ajju had a strong urge to develop his own unique expression to the ever evolving artform. The use of fine detail in combination with bold lines in his art creates a striking and mesmerizing effect that draws the viewer into his surreal world.
Apoorva Mishra
Apoorva Mishra is an architect, artist, urban designer, researcher, and the co-founder of Loksutr. Her work is grounded in community-led design, Indigenous knowledge systems, and collaborative artistic practice. She has played a key role in shaping the visual language of Loksutr’s projects through contextual research, curatorial design, and close work with artists and storytellers. Through her keen aesthetic sense and deep contextual understanding, she has shaped the vision and visual language of the book which are reflected in this book through its colour direction, composition, and overall visual flow, creating a cohesive and immersive experience.
ABOUT THE ARTFORM
Pardhaan Gond Art
Pardhaan Gond art is a contemporary Indian art form which evolved around Jangarh Singh Shyam as its progenitor in the 1980's. The art form is now carried forward and developed by the people from his own tribe. Traditionally, the Pardhaans who were the bards of the Gond tribe, sang songs of the ancestors of their Gond patrons and other epics.
Their paintings thus predominantly depict this intangible cultural heritage which comprise of lores, idioms, metaphors, proverbs, social practices, their deities and rituals associated with them.