Our Vision
Developed in 2023, Odiaesthetics is social media and merchandising brand that aims to bridge the gap between the younger generations of the Odia diaspora around the world to feel more connected to their cultural heritage while also embracing their roots in the country they are brought up in.
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About Us
Odiaesthetics combines the two words, Odia (language from the state of Odisha in Eastern India) and aesthetics in an attempt to highlight the rich culture, history, arts and overall heritage in a trendy manner. Initially it started out as a social media platform in 2020 to highlight Odia content creators and craft entertainment - based clips/reels to build this online community. Currently, Odiaesthetics is undergoing a rebranding phase where it is taking a different approach to create merchandise-based digital art designs that incorporate traditional patterns/prints from Odisha while infusing it modern digital art.
how it started...
Recently, many South Asian creatives have been gaining popularity on social media for developing digital art prints that incorporate aspects of South Asian culture and pop art. Some of these artworks have a play on memes where South Asian viewers find it 'relatable' and are able to connect with the work. This relatively newly formed market has been bridging gaps within the South Asian diaspora around the world. These efforts have allowed South Asians to openly embrace their cultural upbringing, heritage, and rich culture. Creators have gained a lot of traction in their work by promoting and selling their work on ecommerce websites like Etsy and Amazon. Through platforms like TikTok and Instagram, many users are promoting South Asian art prints through word of mouth marketing, modeling in streetwear that implement the designs, and doing video reels of hauls and room decor with the prints.
India is such a diverse country that every state has their own cultural norms, traditions, variation of clothing attires, ceremonies, architecture, food, and many more. A lot of these South Asian prints incorporate aspects of Mumbai life, traditional wear from Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Punjab, South Indian classical dance, notable characters from Bollywood movies, and street food from Northern India. Unfortunately, almost no prints prints highlight aspects of Odia culture and arts. Even in India's mainstream platforms such as prominent news outlets and the Bollywood film industry, there is barely much recognition for Odisha. Outside of the state, it is highly overlooked by others. As a result, many Odia diasporas around the world who did not grow up in Odisha are not able to connect to their culture.
How can they? When even their South Asian community is not able to recognize their own cultural identity how can they expect if from the society they were born and brought up in?
Debanshi Chowdhury, creator of Odiaesthetics was tired that there was no active representation of Odia culture through her society, and wanted to take a step towards creating that change. She started designing digital art prints that had a minimalistic and modern approach to it, but highlighted popular saree prints, dance forms, architecture, and food. Her designs were created to be both compatible for wall prints and merchandise designs that generally take a more simple approach. In the future, she hopes to incorporate her designs onto streetwear so that other Odias across the world are comfortable embracing their cultural identity while also showcasing trendy fashion trends.
DISCLAIMER: While this brand is created for Odias across the world to embrace and promote Odia culture, people outside of this cultural distinction are welcome to interact with any aspect of this brand. After all, this brand aims to promote the culture in hopes of it reaching mainstream one day.
