CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH

Posted by effnbeelifestyle on February 21st, 2021

Looking at a piece of clothing made from home-grown fabric, I am reminded of the practices our ancestors followed for centuries. The same white cotton cloth that is a signifier of birth and death symbolised a movement during the fight for Independence, and khadi becomes art when woven with other natural fibers and precious when infused with gold, silver or strands of silk.

Indian handicrafts are a valuable art form and intrinsic to the fabric of our nation. Although the techniques differ as you move from north to south and east to west, their diverseness is what unites them, and they provide both an outlet for creativity and a source of income to generations of indigenous artisans. This Independence Day, which comes on the heels of Handloom Day, commit to making choices that help preserve, conserve and reinvigorate the dying weaving arts. Now is the time to go local while supporting the artisans who create handmade textiles and contributing to sustainable development.

Verve takes you on an educational trip through the genesis, evolution and future of handloom from the best in the trade.

On August 7, 1905, at the Calcutta Town Hall, in Bengal, a powerful national movement was born with the Boycott Resolution, a call to reject Manchester cotton, amongst other foreign-made goods. This Swadeshi (of one’s own country) movement, initially a protest against the partition of Bengal that was led by the Indian National Congress, fired the imagination of ordinary people. Bonfires were lit across the country to publicly burn foreign clothes. Significantly, this mass movement saw women engage in protests and picketing for the first time. A year later, Congress called for “Swaraj”, or self-rule.

When Gandhi returned to India in 1915, he built upon the Swadeshi ideology, creating a symbol of self-reliance in reclaiming khadi, India’s homespun, handwoven cloth. In 2015, National Handloom Day was established to commemorate this.

Today, we need a people’s movement to embrace Swadeshi once again, to support not only the livelihoods of millions of artisans but also the self-reliant, small-scale sustainable economy that they represent.

ARTISANS’ was initiated in 2011, two decades after the opening up of India’s economy. Foreign brands blazed across the Indian market and quickly changed the aspirations of generations of consumers. There was a visible homogenisation of our lifestyle and culture, and I perceived we were at risk of losing our identity, ironically at a time when the ‘local’ was being celebrated globally.

I felt an urgent need to raise the value of handmade in India. ARTISANS’ became India’s first gallery representing a seamless understanding of kala, where art, craft and design converged. The aim was simple: to transcend commercial transactions between consumers and makers. We want to create lasting value through dialogues between us and our generation of emerging artists, artisans and designers and let people experience craft through workshops, lectures and events, engaging audiences in the context and meaning of cultural objects in a way that is accessible and non-intimidating.

In so much as it is a contemporary perspective, we nurture the individual artist-artisan as the owner of the creative process rather than a producer. Through solo exhibitions, we recognize, for instance, an individual’s signature from within a vernacular form.

We hope to elevate the perception of craft – to celebrate its unparalleled richness and diversity in the world today. Artisanal livelihoods are more relevant than ever, and they are central to a value-based, human-centred model of sustainable development, which places people and planet before profits.

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