Transcript

It is the essence of the interplay of fibre, translucency and robustness that paves the way of these interventions. Witness the silhouette of Gandhi woven with the words of his favourite bhajan with  single count spun yarn and gold thread (design usage promoted post the industrial revolution.) The skill involved here shows that cotton, which is often susceptible to breaking when woven with gold, has been used to highlight words of Mahatma. The sheerness and translucency of the fabric is experienced by the falling reflection as you can see on the wall, this is the result of highly refined jamdani created by weavers from Venkatagiri, Andhra Pradesh. If we were to study this down to the twist of fibre - hand spun yarn reflects light in such a manner that the softness of light is inherent with the texture of the fabric.

This rendition of Gandhi was originally designed by The Dastkaari Haat Samhiti for the Akshara project - yet continues to be woven within the Venkatagiri cluster we work with. A fine example of how in search of our Indianness - perhaps the artist, craftsperson and designer have amalgamated identities, as reflected in this work.