
Bringing the forgotten weavers back into the rich tapestry of Indian textiles
For decades, the gamchha has been a ubiquitous presence on Indian streets.The traditional scarf, made out of a red-and-white chequered piece of fabric, is used as a towel, pillow, turban, eye mask and even a shoulder drape, mostly by the working classes in West Bengal state and other regions of the country.But an exhibition in India's capital Delhi, that concluded two weeks ago, has highlighted the history of the ordinary fabric in a unique way.Titled Gamchha: From the Ordinary to the Extraordinary, it displayed more than 250 pieces of the short drape from 14 Indian states to show the variations of the scarf-towel across regions. From white gamchhas from Kerala with pencil-thin coloured borders, Ikat-woven ones from Odisha to Assam's cotton "gamusa" with red swans and large floral patterns, the interpretations varied from mill-made to hand-woven."The show is about speaking up for a social equality symbol that the garment can evoke, even after decades of being left out from the discourse," said textiles expert Jaya Jaitly, the founder of the Dastkari Haat Samiti, a crafts organisation which presented this show.The exhibition is part of a series of shows and endeavours, held in the past few months, that seek to redefine our understanding of Indian textiles by taking it in new directions.From rich woven silks, patterned brocades and intricate chintz to a range of less talked-about textiles, India's contribution to the global textile industry is unique.But despite the recognition, including at some of the world's largest museums, its documentation has been exclusionary and has not kept up with the contemporary practices within the industry.Until now.Held by art and craft foundations and curated by researchers in collaboration with private collectors and museums, a number of new exhibitions are sparking something of a renaissance within the industry.
It's a departure from the more popular, glamourised take on fashion - there are no crowd-pulling Bollywood stars opening the show, or sponsored after-parties. And the venues are often away from big cities.Instead, the focus is on moving away from urban designers - most of whom are trained in elite colleges in India and abroad - and bring local artisans directly into the fold.These exhibitions are leading towards "technology-prompted egalitarianism" in the textiles ecosystem, says Ritu Sethi, founder of India's Crafts Revival Trust. "Because of Instagram and other digital platforms, the anonymity around craftspeople is also shedding off," she says.What was once a small community of curators and patrons, has now grown to include experts from various fields, including art and architecture. Together, they want to take the history of textiles beyond its extolled richness - associated with the grandeur of palaces, and fineries of ceremonial rituals and weddings - to include diverse cloth-making traditions and the people behind it.The sculpting of a more inclusive contemporary identity is, according to acclaimed designer David Abraham, a homecoming and "a reclamation of pride and value"."For Indians, the relationship with textiles is deep-rooted. We express ourselves culturally through colours, weaves and fabric and each of these has a meaning assigned to it. These shows are reaffirming a value in our system," he says.Consider these instances. Textiles of Bengal: A Shared Legacy, on display in Kolkata until the end of March, highlights the historic uniqueness of the textile traditions of undivided Bengal.On display are some never-seen-before fabrics and garments from the 17th Century to now. There are cotton sarees and dhotis (drapes worn by men) that showcase the region's famed hand weaving traditions such as Jamdani, which continues to be a sought-after fabric even today. Then, there are rare Indo-Portuguese embroideries and some Haji Rumals - embroidered religious cloth once exported to Indonesia and parts of the Arab world as a headdress for men.
The programme includes talks and demonstrations of craft techniques as well as cultural performances - noted dancer Purnima Ghosh performed at one of the sessions dressed in a hand-painted Batik sari. Batik involves drawing designs on fabric with hot liquid wax and a metal object. Artists then use fine brushes to paint dyes within the wax outlines."The goal is to bring back attention to Bengal's shared legacy with Bangladesh, be it textiles, techniques, skills and trades, as well as narrative histories, culture and food, the shifting geographies notwithstanding, "says Darshan Mekani Shah, founder of Weavers Studio Resource Centre, which is holding the exhibition.Elsewhere, curators are trying to introduce a more nuanced understanding of the history of textiles in India, including the ways in which it has been influenced by larger social realities of caste and class struggles.
Take Pampa: Textiles of Karnataka presented by the Abheraj Baldota Foundation that concluded earlier this month in Hampi, a Unesco World Heritage Site. Among the hundreds of textiles on display there was the embroidery work of the Lambanis, a local nomadic tribe; the Kaudi quilts created by the Siddhi community of the state, which traces its origins to Africa; as well as sacred textiles made for Buddhist monasteries.Through these depictions, the show tries to tell the histories of the nomadic, tribal and agrarian communities for whom resilient survival was the leitmotif and cloth a way of narrating their marginalised experiences.And it's not just all about history - some exhibitions highlight the future of the industry too, as designers find new and innovative ways of imagining traditional textiles in a contemporary idiom.
For instance, the recently concluded Surface: An Exhibition of Indian Embroideries and Surface Embellishment as Art, goes beyond apparel and home decor and spotlights the ways textiles are also being used in paintings, drawings, art installations and sculptures.The show, organised by Sutrakala Foundation and held around a stepwell in the old city of Jodhpur, featured a set of textile art pieces made by renowned contemporary painter Manisha Parekh.These shows also play an important role in updating the history of textiles by rigorously documenting it."Even some of the country's biggest fashion institutes do not have an archive of our textiles," says Lekha Poddar, co-founder of Devi Art Foundation, which has supported nine exhibitions on textiles in the past decade.
The Devi Art Foundation's recent project, titled, Pehchaan: Enduring Themes in Indian Textiles, has tried to bridge that gap.Presented in collaboration with Delhi's National Museum, the show featured a survey of visual and material ideas that have recurred in Indian textiles for more than 500 years, with the oldest exhibit ranging from the 14th and 15th Centuries."How will young designers find inspiration for their work if they are not aware of their own histories and don't have visual references for it?" Ms Poddar asks.The success of these shows has made organisers hopeful about its future.The next few years will be all about furthering this creative ecology, says Mayank Mansingh Kaul, who has served as curatorial adviser to 20 such exhibitions in the last 10 years. "Slowly, we will build new audiences, collaborate more and nudge the next generation of makers and practitioners to aspire for quality."Follow BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
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Daily Mail
3 minutes ago
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EXCLUSIVE Little Britain - in a remote corner of Saudi Arabia! What life is like for expat women living in desert compounds while their husbands help build a futuristic $500 billion city
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Samantha Barker, a mother-of-two from the UK, has become a digital ambassador of sorts for NEOM life. Her social media channels offer a curated look into her everyday routine: school runs, coffee outings, gym sessions, and salon appointments all set against a sunlit desert backdrop. In one vlog, Samantha shares a typical day – dropping the children off at school, heading to Starbucks with friends, hitting the gym, and later visiting the on-site salon for a massage and pedicure. 'Great' and 'amazing' are words that pepper her descriptions of life in the compound. She frequently praises the amenities available in what are supposed to be temporary accommodations: swimming pools, spa facilities, playgrounds, football pitches, and even a fully operational Starbucks – comforts that might seem unexpected in a region known for its harsh terrain and traditional conservatism. But not everything is cheaper under the Saudi sun. In another video, Samantha films herself comparing prices in the local supermarket. A large pumpkin, she notes, costs nearly 200SAR – around £40 – while punnet of blueberries or strawberries can run between £5 and £10. Still, she insists, 'considering where we are the prices are really really good.' To help soften the sticker shock, familiar British treats are stocked on the shelves: Celebrations and Roses chocolate boxes among them – small tokens of home for the thousands of UK nationals now living in this futuristic city-in-progress. And it's not just Samantha painting a glossy portrait of NEOM life. Another British influencer, Samara Abbott, also a mother-of-two, has lived in the camp for over two years. She describes her time there as 'incredible,' regularly showing off trips to new restaurants, coffee stops at Dunkin Donuts, and children's play areas. 'I can't believe I am saying this,' she admits in one video, 'but it has been nearly 2 years since I packed up my life in the UK and I got on an aeroplane with my then five-week-old baby to move to somewhere that I had never ever been before. 'It was absolutely madness if you ask me but honestly it was the best decision I have ever made in my life and it still is.' @ Can you believe this is 5 minutes from my doorstep! 🥲🥂🫶🏼💫📍🧿 #neom #neomsaudi #turkish #girlsnightout #datenight #mumsoftiktok @Aida McPherson @sarasid @Akdeniz Turkish Cuisine ♬ original sound - She continued: 'I absolutely love the community here, and I just wouldn't change it for the world.' The utopian lifestyle promoted online paints a rosy image of NEOM – one of safe playgrounds, virtually no traffic, and communal coffee mornings for stay-at-home mums. Families gather at a central food hall offering buffet-style meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In one clip, which since appears to have been deleted, South Africa-born Jessica Herman reveals a 'day in the life' in Neom after she and her husband moved there with their two sons in recent months. In one clip, which since appears to have been deleted, South Africa-born Jessica Herman reveals a 'day in the life' in Neom after she and her husband moved there with their two sons in recent months. Shots of Neom in its infancy, which is just a camp at present for staff working on the development and their families, show the purpose built homes, cafes and parks Neom (pictured) is set to cost $500 million and is funded by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, plus domestic and overseas investors In particular, she focuses on her evening as she gets the children ready to go to dinner, where she meets her husband who has just finished work. She shows herself walking on what appear to be largely empty roads as she heads to the food hall. After meeting her husband, Jessica reveals what the brightly-lit dining hall looks like as she surveys the wide selection of food on offer and boasts: 'We have the best fruit here.' When the family has finished dinner, Jessica shows her oldest son running around and says: 'Now it's time for [him] to run around and go crazy until he gets completely exhausted.' The 'day in the life' clips, many of which have been deleted since they went viral, show mothers spending their time going shopping and having lunch in the food hall Elsewhere, a vlogger named Aida McPherson, who describes herself as an 'expat' living in Saudi Arabia, has revealed her daily life in Neom which includes going to Starbucks in the morning for an iced coffee, before sitting with 'the girls' for a catch up. She also visits the communal food hall for breakfast, which runs for a certain time period in the morning. In one video, she describes her visit to the Tabuk Park Mall, one of her 'favourite places', via a coach. Aida films herself folding down her pram to put it in the coach, where she takes a seat with her friends as they travel to the mall. Once there, she visits a supermarket called Lulus where she buys dried fruit. A glimpse inside the mall reveals some well-known brands including Timberland and H&M have shops there. She visits McDonald's for lunch before doing some shopping for her children. As she heads home, the coach passes a sign which says: 'I [heart] Neom.' In a comment underneath her video, Aida explains that the city is currently a 'construction camp only for employees'. She explains: 'You need to work for Neom in order to stay in the camp.' Elsewhere she adds that her husband was offered a job in Neom, which was why she and the family decided to move there. In another clip, Aida shows herself visiting the supermarket after feeling 'bored', before later going to a friend's apartment block for a visit. She appears to travel to her friend's home on the back of a motorcycle-style taxi service, which drives through largely empty streets. Another expat, who goes by the TikTok handle GGNEOM, posts clips of herself living in the Saudi compound while also quizzing her friends on what they enjoy about living there. In one clip, she asks people to finish the sentence: 'If you live in Neom...' and shows different people's responses to the prompt. One woman says: 'You have a lot of support to self heal', while another says: 'You enjoy a lot of sports.' One of the women asked the question is Aida, who replies: 'You will have the best community and lots of food.' Elsewhere another mother Sara Sid, who appears to be friends with some of the other mumfluencers, showed followers what her average day looks like - including two visits to Starbucks. Sara Sid, who appears to be friends with other mothers who live in Neom, has also posted vlogs about living in the Saudi city It's a seemingly idyllic world, meticulously designed for comfort and cohesion. But scratch beneath the polished surface, and a different picture begins to emerge. Despite its sleek branding and glowing endorsements from TikTok stars, NEOM has been dogged by controversy. Human Rights Watch has reported serious concerns over labor abuses, particularly among the migrant workforce that is physically building the city. Some workers describe overcrowded, squalid housing 'packed like sheep,' plagued by leaking ceilings, bed bugs, and poor ventilation. Safety is another major concern. According to reports in The Wall Street Journal, there have been alarming incidents on-site, including gang rapes, suicides, attempted murders, and reckless driving, with inadequate emergency services compounding the issues. Even more troubling are claims that entire indigenous communities have been forcibly removed to make way for the mega-city. Former CIA agent Col Rabih Alenezi, now living in exile in the UK, told the BBC he was ordered to evict members of the Huwaitat tribe – a group with deep historical roots in the area. An artist's impression of what The Line will look like. While working on the construction site 21,000 workers have died in the last eight years He claims that one protester was shot and killed during the evictions. The Saudi government has refused to comment. Despite these revelations, construction surges ahead. NEOM's developers have secured $5.6 billion in housing deals to expand residential compounds to eventually accommodate more than 100,000 people. According to NEOM's website, the city's vision is to become a 'global hub for business' powered by sustainability and innovation, backed by the Kingdom's sovereign wealth fund and international investors. The centerpiece of the project, The Line, is a planned 170km linear city intended to house 9 million residents, where daily essentials are promised to be 'within a five-minute walk.' Renderings depict sleek, mirrored skyscrapers stretching across the desert – a stark contrast to the modest but modern compounds where expats like Samantha and Samara live today. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said: 'We cannot ignore the livability and environmental crises facing our world's cities, and NEOM is at the forefront of delivering new and imaginative solutions to address these issues.' Whether NEOM becomes the beacon of innovation it claims to be or a cautionary tale of overreach and erasure remains to be seen.


Daily Mail
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Beloved 80s sitcom star re-emerges as LA ICE protester clad in terrifying outfit
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Daily Mail
31 minutes ago
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Twins who played Ross and Rachel's baby daughter on Friends dish behind-the-scenes secrets
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