The rich collection of India's cultural heritage relating to textile blocks should be preserved, documented and made available to students of fine arts, fashion designers and research scholars for popularising it, said Principal Secretary and Commissioner of Museums T.S. Sridhar on Monday.
Inaugurating a month-long special exhibition, ‘Collection of textile blocks,' at Government Museum on the World Heritage Day, he said that even with the advent of mechanised printing methods, the handcrafted designs and made-to-order cloths were popular among people as they had great value.
However, the demand for handcrafted saris and clothes was fading as production was laborious, time-consuming, costlier. Non-availability of skilled weavers was also an issue.
“To showcase our rich collections, we will create a separate pavilion for handcrafted and textile products in the botany gallery. Besides, a weaver will be stationed at the venue to demonstrate the usage of dyes and block designs and how it was transferred on to cloth or materials,” he said.
Mentioning that century-old royal Kodali Karuppur saris were unique products of Tamil Nadu, he said they were in possession of a sample design and it would be displayed soon.
Museum Curator, Botany Section, M.N. Pushpa, said for the first time public were allowed to view 148 textile blocks that were century-old. Another 50 textile blocks would be added to the collection in a month's time.
According to her, the blocks made out of timber and metal came in different sizes, contours and designs. The decorative motifs of the blocks varied from floral, faunal, geometric, rings, dots and zigzag arrangement. Peepul leaf was the common theme.
Building structure, creeper, climber, design, lotus flower, peacock were found in the textile blocks.
She said they had launched a catalogue on textiles and textile blocks that was available at the Museum for ready reference.
