Stately Fabrics

Fabrics, like rivers, flow with stories.

A year ago, a simple question nudged Lavina Baldota, Hosapete-based businesswoman with a keen interest in collecting textiles, design, and art, to commission and co-curate the first showcasing of Pampa – Textiles of Karnataka within the grand ruins of the bazaar in Hampi. She remembers Mayank Mansingh Kaul, the New Delhi-based independent researcher, writer and curator, calling her to ask for “a book on the textiles of Karnataka.” The glaring lack of a ready-reckoner filled with the comprehensive history of the state’s rich textiles stirred the pair into rapid action.

For the second showing of Pampa – Textiles of Karnataka at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) – presented by the Abheraj Baldota Foundation with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India – the curatorial team – Lavina, Mayank, and Nupur Saxena have grown the exhibition to 150 exquisite works – collected from extensive travel across the state, commissioned from artisans and couturiers, and borrowed from private collections and public museums. These works represent the region’s robust textile histories from the eighteenth century to the contemporary.

Thread the room

First off, dear reader, this exhibition is a stunning treat. Spread across the ground floors of the museum’s two buildings, the “histories and contemporary trajectories of handmade and hand-patterned textiles of Karnataka” are threaded through three sections: Materials, Making, and Meaning.

In the rooms of the Materials section, we were introduced to the spectrum of natural fibres that form the foundation of Karnataka’s textiles. We note the familiar yarns of cotton, mulberry silk, and wool, besides threads extracted from the banana and water hyacinth plants. The breadth of knowledge to be devoured is vast, offering moves between the state’s historical associations to contemporary applications. A commonplace material like khadi gets presented through the display of the National Flag, a hat-tip to the fact that it is exclusively produced by the Karnataka Khadi Gramodyoga Samyukta Sangha (KKGSS) in Hubbali. But we also see the material get used in a khadi coat by the city-based design legend Sujata Keshavan for her brand Varana. It’s brilliantly white, cut in a French silhouette, and quilted with patterns inspired from the handpainted frescoes of Amer Fort near Jaipur. This curatorial eye to coax conversation between material, its cultural expressions, and individual creativity is the reassuring spine of Pampa – Textiles of Karnataka.

White and off-white shades of cotton lead to an exhibit of naturally-coloured brown varieties of this fibre distinct to Karnataka and primarily cultivated in Dharwad and Raichur districts. Here, brown cotton threads the dialogue between wall panels that showcase a dictionary of motifs and patterns of kasuti, an intricate embroidery technique of the state, to jamdani saris woven in West Bengal; speaking to its increasing integration into handloom textiles of other regions of the country. And idioms of the humble kambali anchor the final room of the Materials section. Sheep wool used by the Kurubas, a prominent pastoral community of the state, to handweave blankets, here it is used to create clothing, furnishings, and domestic objects. We’re still thinking about the striking, graphic handfelted wall hanging by the artist Shivaranjan B and the women artisans from Kadoli in Belagavi that honours the anchu battu, or hand tattoos of the women of Belagavi.

The silky city

Bengaluru-based artists Archana Hande and Suresh Jayaram’s Threads of Love, War, And Renewal grounds the second iteration of this exhibition with the city’s own textile histories.

Through installation and photography, their project traces the fascinating history of Manikyavelu Mansion, the home of the NGMA, and its deep associations with the silk trade, silk yarn woven in mills across the state that were used for parachutes during World War II, to then these unused and discarded silken parachutes being used to make wedding dresses for wealthy Britishers. Even in this spectrum of delights, there are these thoughtful moments of delicious detail.

Lucid seams

Once fully captured by the material and its many possibilities, we roam through the rest of the galleries, stopping at the shiny works like magpies. We’re going to give a breathless rundown, dear reader, with an eye on some of the city’s contributions to the exhibition.

There’s the Benkipatna Saree woven by Gurum R Narayanappa and Kamalamma from Magadi Road in Bengaluru; it’s diaphonous, weighs 30 grams and fits in a matchbox. There’s the Chandrakali, a sari by the city-based Kubsa Handcrafted Textiles dyed a shade of indigo that mimics the deep blue-blacks of a moonless night, that paired well with Bengaluru artist Kaimurai’s Kritajna (Gratitude), a sculpture of terracotta, unbleached textile, and natural indigo pigment that felt like coming across a sacred space except stained in inky blue. Along the Way 2, an autorickshaw brightly decked out in patchwork, applique, quilting created by Bengaluru artist Jeevan L Xavier in collaboration with Liner Chandra Kumar M, master autorickshaw upholstery artisan, and designer Parthasarthi T stands out. But it isn’t just flash, it hints at the transfer between traditional textile techniques and street art and aesthetic.

Kirige, a citrus yellow and emerald green sari revived by designer Surabhi R Deshpande of the city-based Yaana Weaving House from an original in the Weavers’ Service Centre, Bengaluru, brings to life a unique weaving technique. “The speciality of these Anekal saris,” she says, lifting the pallu of her own sari to show us, “is the alternating use of cotton and silk yarns in the warp threads.” This weaving secret gives these saris their subtle sheen and softness. Kirige saris are also shorter in width than other saris because they were worn for rituals involving temple and village festivals, “and one didn’t need the headache of wondering if one might trip on their sari during the procession,” she tells us.

We’re drawn to the turmeric hue of the Namjar Bedspread designed by city-based fashion designer Jason Cheriyan and sewn by monks of Rato Dratsang, Mundgod, and blown away by the beauty of a Kalamkari Prayer Mat by an unknown maker. These works pepper the display of saris ranging from cotton to silk saris with complex grids of stripes and checks, kasuti-embroidered saris, to the vibrant, metallic-coloured brocade saris of Molkalmuru in Chitradurga district. On commission, the couturier Gaurav Gupta has used this regional textile to create Ananta Sutra, a one-of-a-kind gown with a voluminous silhouette and a pronounced bustle.

While winding our way out, we were stopped in our tracks and gobsmacked by Scenes from the Ramayana, a giant narrative scroll from the last quarter of the eighteenth century from the time of the Nayakas in Karnataka. From a distance, it looks like it’s been printed but closer examination reveals its mindbogglingly detailed embroidery that has created the gods, goddesses, and scenes of this epic on the textile. It’s on loan from the National Museum, courtesy the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, and it’s well worth braving the city’s traffic to glimpse this beauty alone.

But thankfully, Pampa – Textiles of Karnataka runs for another 40 days because like us, you will want to go back a few times too – there’s a lot more to take in. So thrilling to be reminded that we don’t have to travel far and wide in search of awe. Most times, it’s simply at our own doorstep.

The details: Pampa – Textiles of Karnataka is on view till 15 December at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru. Tuesday–Friday, 10am – 6pm & Saturday–Sunday, 11am – 8pm. The standard admission fee applies to visitors aged above 18 years. Free weekly gallery walkthroughs of the exhibition happen every Thursday in Hindi at 4pm, every Friday in English at 4pm, and every Saturday in Kannada at 4pm. No registration required for the walkthroughs.