From the mundane to the myth, India’s identity is deeply intertwined with its textiles. They have nurtured craftsmanship, built communities, played a role in national revolutions, and paved the way to create world trade networks. Yet, despite its rich history spanning centuries, it has garnered few enthusiasts as a medium within the arts. Today, textile-based shows are slowly working to change this narrative.
Threads That Bare at the ongoing Delhi Contemporary Art Week (DCAW) showcases how artists can draw inspiration from India’s diverse textile traditions to create multifaceted storytelling. It is being presented at a significant time — when curators and galleries are exhibiting a growing number of textile-based shows in the subcontinent. From Vayan – The Art of Indian Brocades, curated by Mayank Mansingh Kaul, at Delhi’s National Crafts Museum (2023), to Sutr Santati at NGMA in Mumbai (2024), and Entwined - Edition 2 by Apparao Galleries.
Creating a visual map
Artist Natasha Das, traditionally trained in oils, shifted to textiles after finding limitations with paint. Working with thread, fabric, and the weaving communities of Assam, she finally got the space to be vulnerable through her art. “I shifted to memories and touch,” she says. “When the pandemic hit, I closed my studio and started working with thread, layering it like oil. Textiles gave me a platform to feel, bond, and be present. My choice to use eri and muga silk in my works stemmed from this experience.”
Color Bricks; thread work on eri silk
At DCAW, her work Lahe Land 2 (lahe lahe means ‘slowly’ in Assamese) is an ode to the culture of the region and its landscape. “It is a visual map constructed from memory. I started by stitching and attaching, creating blocks of colour that are dense, and playful threads that connect these spaces,” she explains. “The beautiful violet you see is the water hyacinth of Assam; the onion green eri silk is earthy. Each thread carries a memory and has a tale to tell.”
Also at Threads That Bare — which features 14 artists — are Geeta Khandelwal and Khadim Ali. Khandelwal has dedicated decades to studying and practising the art of quilt-making. On display are her meticulously recreated miniature royal garments from the 18th and 19th centuries using techniques such as hand-sewing and quilting. Ali, meanwhile, draws from miniature and tapestry traditions. His body of work bears witness to his family’s migrations, loss, and trauma resulting from the conflict zones of Afghanistan and Pakistan, which he still calls home. In his monumental mixed-media work, I’m the Third Script 2, he employs embroidery on cotton and silk, intricately weaving his childhood memories on fabric.
Geeta Khandelwal’s miniature royal garments
“While the market may seem small currently, I believe it’s on the cusp of expansion with the backing of gallerists and collectors who genuinely appreciate and engage with textile art.”Sharan ApparaoCurator-director, Apparao Galleries
Ideas, identities and emotions
While for some fibre artists, a concept or experience serves as inspiration, for others, it’s the inherent nature of the material itself. “They have the ability to adapt, making them receptive to different ideas, stories, identities, and emotions,” says Rajarshi Sengupta, art historian and practitioner, whose textile works inspired by the kalamkari tradition were part of Entwined last month. “My practice also recognises coexistence as a key theme that connects questions of visual and sensory elements, shared histories and future directions.”
At Entwined
Sengupta’s inquiry into the history of kalam began with master carvers Kondra Gangadhar and Kondra Narsaiah, in their woodblock-making workshop in Andhra Pradesh’s Machilipatnam region. He also ventured into the dyeing practices — of coastal communities of the Coromandel — that have an impact on the application of colours on textiles. His work Catalogue Konda is an extension of this exploration and ethnographic studies of Deccani textiles and their artisanal histories.
Rajarshi Sengupta’s Again; natural dye on myrobalan treated handwoven cotton
With such significant textile-based art exhibitions being curated, one can’t help but wonder why the sudden surge of interest. Delhi-based Kaul, a curator with a focus on textiles, says, “This is a reflection of a global trend. I have observed that the field of contemporary visual arts, from time to time, has a tendency to draw from varied creative sources. We have seen this in the past with architecture, film, and so on. Textiles seem to be its fascination at the moment, and while this is welcome at many levels, those who have worked with the medium for a long time are also cautious that this does not remain a passing phenomenon. That it is able to translate into a better market for fibre-based artists, as well as sustained commercial viability for the galleries involved.”
Embroidery and women’s agency
Textiles are also being examined from a gendered perspective. Their associated material, style, and processes that were previously categorised as a ‘woman’s craft’ have long been absent from the universally accepted definition of fine arts. Artists — and yes, primarily women artists — are asserting their agency and challenging this traditional divide.
For instance, Varunika Saraf’s The Longest Revolution (part of the 2023 show CheMoulding at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai) was created using embroidery on a cotton textile. “I am interested in women’s agency, women as makers of their own futures and agents of socio-political change,” she says. “When I thought about the hopes, beliefs and fears that I share with the women in my life, it seemed natural to embroider.”
A section of Varunika Saraf’s The Longest Revolution | Photo Credit: Courtesy @chemouldprescottroad
Adding to the discourse, Kaul says, “Globally, curators have suggested that this current fixation with textile-based art is also emerging from an increased attention to women-based art practices. I personally think there is, overall, a greater interest in materiality and abstraction than before. Or perhaps this is only natural, given the long neglect of the field by the art world.”
The seventh edition of DCAW is on till September 4 at Bikaner House.
The writer is a Delhi-based museum and arts professional.
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