As soon as she embarked on her quest to become a designer in 1960s, Ritu Kumar pursued her habit of making notes, taking timely pictures and creating artistic impressions on canvas of the places she visited. Along the way, she documented the crafts of artisans. Now all these visual elements have been brought to life for the public through an exhibition at India Habitat Centre. Crossroads: Textile Journeys with Ritu Kumar is conceived as an intimate experience which helps art lovers to appreciate the beauty and diversity of these textile regions.
“I was an arts student before I became a designer. That still stays and making paintings was my way of expressing the world around me,” is how Ritu Kumar likes to describe her fascination for visual arts. The exhibition is a precursor to her upcoming book detailing her 50 years of travel through South Asia and Europe. Part professional memoir, part personal reflections on the historical regions that she has visited, the book promises to be the only contemporary form of travelogue authored by a designer in post-independent India. “Through this exhibition, I am giving homage to artisans, who remain unsung.”
The vintage textiles have been sourced from her own vast collection and bring alive the interconnections between distant cultures which share artistic linkages.
Excerpts:
Tell us how this multi-faceted initiative came about
The book has been in the works for the last 30 to 40 years! Whenever I used to go to these regions, I would make notes in my dairy to see how the places had changed. All this that you see here is part of my travelogue. It has many sections on different parts of the country. It all came together through the craft route and these are all craftspersons who worked with their hands in different embroideries, printings and weaving.
Can we see the world through textiles?
In India you can, but in the rest of world, hand crafts have disappeared. I feel we have a rich culture of textiles. This exhibition is proof of that. I hope we can still retain it. However, due to commercialisation, mechanisation and not enough encouragement and patronage, I feel, we are at crossroads in India. That is why the name of exhibition is named crossroads. Like in rest of the world, in India too we may lose our crafts and textiles because the next generation may not have interest in them. In most cultures it has gone.
In the exhibition what catches the eye is an imaginary portrait of young Babur before he became the Mughal emperor.
When I went to Uzbekistan, I found that there was not much left of Babur. I was wondering how Babur would look like in those days. Under the Communist regime in Uzbekistan, a lot of our history has disappeared. Through this collage, I am trying to place Babur in the kind of interiors that he lived in Fergana with rich mosaics, carved pillars and portraits of nobles on the wall. I took pictures of interiors in Uzbekistan, miniature paintings depicting Babur and some dolls. I have used digital imagery and painting to create that period.
Any particular reason for using Uzbekistan as the first stop...
I had given that to the publisher to make a mock-up. And then the exhibition happened.
What are similarities between the crafts of Uzbekistan and India?
The two countries have had trade ties through the Silk Route, so there are a lot of similarities. The ikat technique used in Uzbekistan, for example, is identical to ours. The technique is tie and dye of yarn, but designs and patterns are different . Uzbek men wore ikats, while our ikats are worn by women; in India, we have them even in saris and in temple hangings. Their embroidery is also similar to what we do.
The block printers of Uzbekistan, who have now been reduced to a tourist attraction, are starkly similar to the Farrukhabad block printers. They share almost a poetic connection.
Your memoirs are an interesting mix of personal and professional...
I did not want it to be a dry travelogue. I wanted to tell readers what to look for, where to eat and to give them a feel of the geography of the place. If contemporary designers go through this book, they would come to know where the looms are, whom to meet and where to go. It is a fairly well-researched book. There are personal references like when I was with my son abroad and he liked the place so much that he started photographing.
One chapter is ready. The rest are under process. They will come within the next few months.
Tell us about the textile links between India, West Asia and Europe.
I feel we have a very rich printing tradition which was taken from India to Europe where they copied all our designs and make them look as if they were theirs . This is our linkage with Europe which took advantage of our prints. In the East, Cambodia also used our ikats. So India has been the central hub from where different textiles traditions have travelled to different parts of the world.
Designs of the huge Pashmina shawls which I am showcasing here were also copied in Europe in a very big way. They are more than 100 years old and had come to Bengal. All Maharajas used to wear Kashmiri shawls. I procured them from dealers. They are very old and original ones which have been woven with Kani weaves. What we get today is the commercial version of Pashmina. Today shawls are embroidered and not made in Kani weaves. The idea is to highlight all these areas in our country where we still have a strong tradition of textiles. But in rest of the world, which my book mentions, they have almost gone.
What kind of challenges did you face at the start of your career?
It was very frustrating in some places because we did not know where to go and whom to meet. This was mostly because by the time I started my work as a designer, Indian artisans had completely lost faith in their craft. Some places were very productive, whereas in others we found nothing. In those days, there was no such thing as fashion designer and the challenge was not just designing but also giving these traditional artists confidence in their arts. It was a difficult route. I started in Bengal where I lived and found it a very conducive place. The workers were very cooperative because I was giving new ideas to them and they were getting better work.
My interest in reviving zardozi embroidery at the time took me to villages of Uluberia and Panihat. Here I found artisans working in small mud huts or under palm trees. So, I created a collage where I have tried to capture my impression of that time and place.
