Tag Archives: embroidery

A long and winding road through Rajasthan

December 13, 2012 Kevin Murray 1 Comment

Among a new generation of idealists in Kishangarh

I was in Ahmedabad for ten days recently to work on the Make it New Again conference at National Institute of Design. In the enchanted city, we had a delirious range of master craftspeople, young entrepreneurs, adventurous designers, Aboriginal artists, and craft intellects gather to share ideas about the enhanced role of craft in the contemporary world.

Generally, I get a privileged view of what’s happening in world craft, filtered through the programing of events such as this conference and World Crafts Council extravaganzas. But it’s getting on the road and visiting villages where craft is still practiced that I tend to learn about what’s missing from these rosy views.

I had the opportunity after the conference of going to Kishangarh to teach a workshop at the new University of Central Rajasthan. I arrived late at night, embracing the warm night air after being confined in the freezing AC in First Class (there were no tickets available in Sleeper). Stumbling across the tracks, I found my host waiting patiently, who took me to my accommodation in the Heritage Hotel. Like many developments in Kishangarh, this mock Haveli is only two years old.

I found out soon after arrival that there was no WiFi or Internet in the rooms, but the staff lent me their hotel’s own dongle so I could get a connection during the night when they didn’t need it. This is a typical Indian exchange – disappointment with services followed by a generous gesture. Perhaps there would be more reliable Internet in Australian hotels, but they would charge you for it and would happily abandon you if there was a fault.

The motto of Central University of Rajasthan is ‘Education for Sustainable Development’. For our workshop, we focused on the concept of sustainability, to understand what it means to preserve the past, and when it might be better to let go. The students were mostly Rajasthani and quite idealistic about the negative impact of economic development. They seemed to embrace the discussions, offering critical perspectives on commodification. It was clear that this was a new generation of open-minded young Indians which offered much promise for all the new organisations and businesses that are starting up around the country.

Women from Jharkhand learning to make circuits for solar panels with Barefoot College in Thilonia

After the workshop I was kindly invited by local Australian Fiona Wright and her husband to visit Thilonia, the fabled village of Barefoot College. I’d seen Bunker Roy speak about this in 2010 and found it impossibly idealistic. But seeing for myself the women from Jharkhand making circuits for solar panels, I lost any doubts about the project. It was an inspiring experience.

Wall in Thilonia where the recipients of a work subsidy are named, along with number of days and full payment. There's no escaping the truth.

Afterwards, a person who runs a new start-up for online craft sales offered to show me some villages on the way back to Jaipur. In his little jeep, we trundled down endless bumpy roads to find a village that he has been working with to supply goods for sale.

On arrival, I found myself the object of a traditional welcome. A woman came out of the house to drape a garland of flowers around my neck and anoint my forehead with a tilak red thumbprint. I do confess to a romantic notion about traditional welcome ceremonies, so was quite overcome to be greeted like this.

Residents from the village of Kashod in Rajasthan prepare something in recognition of Sangam Project.

We then went inside for a chai and sit down. During this time, various men came and went. They seemed quite distant from any craft production, and I began to wonder if I was captive to some patriarchal elite in the village. After some time, and in fading light, we eventually went to visit some of the homes were women embroidered. In what seemed an endless succession, I was invited into room after room where women stretched their fabric to work on. They eagerly demonstrated their techniques for me. I was very grateful for the contact, but the embroidery itself seemed quite elemental, particularly compared to the masters present in Make it New Again. Many of the sequins were glued onto the stretch fabric.

Being shown the embroidery set up

This in itself isn’t an issue for a village that clearly maintained a local craft production. But there were expectations attached to my presence that I could be able to take it further, perhaps opening new markets for them. It is conceivable that a designer could come to live with these women and develop a unique product that would stand out from others. They were in the business of setting up an impressive village office, that could prove a hub for this. But visiting their homes, I was quite struck by the wonderful visual sense evident in the arrangement of objects on shelves. An alternative route would be develop the design skills of the women themselves in an alternative medium, like graphics.

During the long freezing drive back to Jaipur, I worked through the experience. What to do with such great expectations? Is the one-off presence of an outsider like myself sufficient in itself as an unusual event to give honour to the local embroiderers? How can a product carry values that are part of village life? There was many questions floating around, but one definite conclusion settled in my mind. I discarded any notion that Rajasthan was saturated with craft NGOs. The region has a potent combination of need, and capacity, but the challenges should not be underestimated. I do dip my lid at those who make a fist of it.

Uncategorized

Polly&me – masterpieces in idle chatter from Pakistan

June 12, 2009 Kevin Murray 3 Comments

image

‘GupShup’ means chit chat in Urdu and Hindi. It was the title of an exhibition by Polly&me, a group working on an embroidery project involving women in Chitral, in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The results of their workshops were displayed in Islamabad and Karachi, where half of the works were sold. The creative processes which produced these works were aligned closely with the grain of everyday existence. These simple pleasures of daily life shine brightly against the dark clouds of global tension associated with this corner of the world.

Polly&me was developed by Cath Braid, an Australian who originally started work in northern Pakistan with Kirsten Ainsworth as part of the clothing label Caravana, which featured in Smartworks. Cath has been working in Chitral since 2003. The town is in the north-west frontier of Pakistan, near Afghanistan, and lies nested within the mountain range of the Hindu Kush. Populated by the Kho people, fond of playing polo, the region is synonymous with fundamentalist terrorism in the Western mind.
View Larger Map

Cath has been working with the AKRSP (Aga Khan Rural Support Program) to assist women’s development. Her work in Chitral was assisted by Rolla Khadduri, a Lebanese woman, who has been working in Pakistan for four years. For Rolla, this project is ‘an opportunity to give women the space to tell their own stories’. Rolla worked with Cath
on running the workshops, probing the women about their stories, and recording their tales to appear at the back of each textile.

Cath has been working with 30 mostly unmarried women in particular. She begins with story-telling, dealing with everyday themes such as family life. They explore the graphic world around them, particularly in packaging of products from the market. Their creative exercises include making a collage of photographs of children. These them form the basis of the embroideries.

The subject of their embroideries included everyday play, such as Eikonchekek, the egg fighting game during Eid, the mother-daughter relationship and children’s names. At the same time as they explored freely their lives, these women were quite proud of their isolation (or protection) from the outside world through purdah.

image

Eikonchekek reflects the play during the feast of Eid when children go into battle with eggs. The story depicts a young boy who would boil his eggs so that they could withstand assault.

image

Games with Didi was created by Haseena, a 23 year-old unmarried woman. It depicts the riotous play between children, including Didi sitting in the tub usually reserved for washing dishes. Haseena talks about the experience of making this work:

During the workshops I used to go home with a certain joy in my heart from my work, I had become workaholic, and was not even aware of the time as we used to be so deeply involved in our work, it was fun, the practicality like practically first doing the task before going into the designing part was just wonderful.

Haseena particularly liked the exercise of drawing without looking at the paper. She was pleased to travel to Islamabad for the exhibition – ‘my childhood adventure was known to the world’ – and will be depositing money from the sale in a savings account with her bank.

image

The work Sultan the Sitar-Player depicts a famous musician who performs historic songs of political opposition in Farsi. He is accompanied by a jerry-can. It was created by Naseema, Shehria and Saba. From one of his songs:

People don’t know who I am mad after,
They don’t know what is in my heart,
Those who are in love know this pain,
Oh, queen of beauty,
I want your beauty’s charity,
Like a beggar I have come
For only I deserve your beauty’s charity,
Even my heart has stopped functioning.

image

Pot Swap was created by Zaibunissa, a mother of three. According to Zaibunissa:

Obviously it represents my house. I was so surprised to see my kitchen in the piece. My children helped me a lot on the piece and that gave a more personal touch to the piece as all my family got very emotionally attached with. That gave me very soothing and satisfying feelings.

This work was purchased by the Executive Director, The US Educational Foundation in Pakistan. Zaibun says that she will use the money to support her son’s education, ‘because for the admission of my son in a good college I’ll be needing that money as today’s inflation era people mostly hesitate in giving loan or lending money.’

image

Mehndi was created by nine women, including Musarat, a 13 year old girl. At the exhibition opening, Mehndi was interviewed by Aaj TV, which greatly impressed her family back in Chitral: ‘I had never before in my life faced a TV camera and they were saying that they felt really proud that among all the other girls I was chosen for an interview.’ Mehndi now wants to take on the role of Cath and Rolla and teach others herself, but according to her friend Nasreen, ‘in Chitrali Nang Kizibiko Lo, You have to come out of age for all this you are too young to even think of such a thing.’

image

Each textile work has its corresponding narrative sewn onto its back. To broaden involvement with the community, button pieces have been developed that women embroider with the names of male relatives and prayers. 250 women became involved in this.

Gup Shup is a landmark collaboration. Rather than seeking to preserve craft in its pure traditional form, this project introduces creative strategies to develop new images that seem true to the lives of their makers. But what seems most striking about his project is the sheer quality of the work itself, both in its craftsmanship and deft arrangement of ordinary elements.

This project seems quite transparent about the experience of the women it is meant to support. Apart for the creative challenges that they enjoyed, there seemed also benefits in the money and recognition that their work brings. But the meaning of this project is never complete. We watch with great interest to see how the women continue this momentum, and whether young girls like Musarat eventually start initiating project themselves.

image

Games with Didi and Sultan the Sitar Player will be on display with the World of Small Things exhibition. There will also be bags embroidered made by the women for sale in the Craft Victoria show. Proceeds from the work go directly to the women who made them.

For more information about the project, please visit their extensive website:

www.pollyandme.com

Thanks to Ange Braid and Grace Cochrane for their assistance.

Uncategorized

Embroidering survival in Palestinian refugee camps

May 28, 2009 Kevin Murray 1 Comment

image

Though you might lose the world around you, you still have your hands. The Palestinian refugees have been living in refugee camps for almost sixty years. Women maintain their culture partly through embroidery. Luckily, there’s an organisation that can assist in helping their work find a market. For a modest price, you can obtain not only a beautiful object of use, but also a message of survival.

Inaash was founded and registered in Lebanon since 1969 as a non-governmental organization by a devoted group of Lebanese and Palestinian ladies motivated by their deep concerns for the deprived families in the camps. Over the years Inaash has trained around 2000 women up to a professional level.

Inaash aims to preserve and promote traditional Palestinian embroidery, and create jobs for women in the camps thus helping them to be economically independent. The embroidered items are made by Palestinian refugee women who were expelled from Palestine after Israeli occupation of their country in 1948. They moved to Lebanon and settled in camps. Some of them knew how to embroider: as young daughters they grew up watching their mothers. Others were taught how to embroider by the Inaash art committee.

image

Embroidery is a traditional craft practice for Palestinians. Designs are passed on from mother to daughter, each generation changing a little and adding new inspirations. The repertoire is constantly changing and evolving. It varies from place to place in Palestine. Inspiration for patterns came from uniforms, creamies, printed fabrics, architectural motifs and nature.

image

Many names of designs come from village life and are symbols of certain concepts, such as eternity and wealth. There are more than 200 floral and geometric motifs passed on from one generation to another. Many objects were embroidered, including cushions, runners, dresses—some for daily wear and others for special occasions like weddings. Embroidery dresses are not only beautiful but also told stories. Women chose what statements their clothes should make. Some lavish embroidered dresses have over 200, 000 cross-stitches.

The art committee of Inaash prepares the design, colors and provides the ladies in the camps with the raw materials needed (canvas, threads, silk). Women are paid by piece, finish the product and sell it. Inaash is hoping to develop its program by cooperation with volunteer fashion designers to bring in new ideas and by expanding the marketing of its products.

image

The story of Samar, who embroidered the tea cosy for the World of Small Things:

My name is Samar. I am 50 years old. A mother for four children. I am from Java in Palestine. My family came to south of Lebanon after the Israeli occupied our country in 1948. My grandmother managed to save some of her beautiful traditional embroidered dresses and brought them with her. They were the most valuable things she ever had! I grew up in Rushdie camp watching my mother and her friends. Embroidering is an identity, it is our identity. It is part of my life not only to support my family financially but also feel proud participating in preserving our traditional heritage. In the afternoons, my kids study on their own and I socialize with my friends each having an item to embroider. If and only if those items can speak… they will tell you all the stories of the neighborhood!

I enjoy distributing colors and deciding what to put and where. It needs creativity. The most enjoyable moment is when I look at my finished lovely work! I do it with love that is why it is always wonderful! This tea cozy took me 120 hours (on average) I used DMC threads. My challenge for you is to count the number of cross-stitches! This tea cozy should only be enjoyed by people who appreciated hand work.

image

One of Samar’s tea cosies.

Thanks to Souad Amin for the material for this post. Souad works with the Association for the Development of Palestinian Camps (Inaash) where she develops products made by Palestinian refugees living in camps in southern Lebanon.