Awards & Mentions

Sandooka is an immersive online archive dedicated to preserving and celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the Kodavas in Kodagu, Karnataka. Its name, meaning "treasure chest" in Kodava, symbolizes the preservation of cherished traditions, memories, and knowledge held by the community. Over two years, a multidisciplinary team conducted extensive field research in collaboration with the Kodava community, gathering oral testimonies, photographs, videos, and memorabilia. With contributions directed by an advisory group and curated by art and design professionals, the project evolved into a vibrant digital museum featuring 54 stories across nine categories including architecture, cuisine, festivals, crafts, landscape, literature, and community histories. Sandooka reimagines the museum experience through a nonlinear timeline enriched by a graph-based narrative structure. Visitors explore interconnected stories, with each entry tagged across multiple themes. Selecting one story reveals its links across other categories, encouraging serendipitous discovery. A collapsible navigation pane and embedded tags ensure intuitive access and visibility of connections. Initiated by Rathi Vinay Jha of India Foundation for the Arts, Sandooka is designed as a living, evolving platform, continually shaped by community input. The platform includes a glossary of Kodava terms, contextual maps, and resource lists for deeper exploration. Through immersive storytelling and digital experimentation, Sandooka preserves Kodava cultural memory and opens it up to diasporic communities, scholars, and the curious, ensuring that traditions endure and evolve in the digital era.