‘Disobedient Objects’: A show spotlights the labour that goes into making clothes

In the sun-kissed space of STIR Art Gallery in New Delhi, a large muslin scroll with a kurta sewn into it hangs from the ceiling. Looming large in the middle of the arts space, the fabric features blood red flowers emerging from black vines—a metaphor for the state of women’s desires within patriarchal societies and religious orthodoxies. In this Untitled work, ink has been used to mimic embroidery and question, “where do dreams go” through the ephemerality of the medium. This collaborative work is part of the ongoing An-nisa series, created by artist Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai with rafoogars (darners) from Najibabad, Uttar Pradesh. It reflects the desires of a community of women, who work on embroidery over songs and sisterhood (Ahmadzai grew up in Najibabad and has since then lived in India and Afghanistan). Now based in Germany, she is known for combining textile and text to interrogate the agency, or lack of it, of Muslim women in South Asia.

This work signals protest within the larger exhibition, Disobedient Objects: The Biography of Clothes, curated by Sreyansi Singh and presented by the India Art Fair for their Young Collectors' Programme. Featuring eight designers and artists, including Debashish Paul, Ahmadzai, Anuj Sharma, Ashita Singhal and RKIVE City, the show explores clothes-making as a layered sociopolitical practice within contemporary art, beyond the conventional frameworks of consumption. “Can the material and labour involved in its making carry the ultimate meaning instead of design?” asks Singh, who focuses on textile art with an emphasis on experimental and underrepresented approaches in contemporary South Asian cultures.

The majority of the works have been created specifically for the show. “We wanted to talk about disembodied garments, clothes that are not occupied by the wearer. The artists focus on materiality and labour—the choices that people make when they design the garment,” says Singh. This has resulted in a diverse set of works in Disobedient Objects, ranging from hybrid forms, sculptural compositions, object-based works and research-led installations. The artists have turned the material and underlying craft on the head. So, you have textile waste embroidered on wood or hand-stitched iron and sculpted indigenous cotton. “(These) carry both imprints of history and an impulse for experimentation. Clothes become charged epistemic objects and mediums,” states the curatorial note. So, Shradha Kochhar creates a wearable sculpture, Travelers Guardian, from handspun, hand-knitted and hand-sewn kala cotton.

The sculpture, which moves between the realms of costume and architecture, human and animal forms, is inspired by the performance art tradition of Kachhi Ghodi of Rajasthan. It is based on the costumes that men wear while performing stories of myth and memory. “What I particularly like about Shradha’s practice is that she spins the yarn on the charkha herself and brings the spotlight on to the labour of the craftsperson,” says Singh. Then there are works by RKIVE City and Richa Arya, who focus on upcycling in the fashion industry. The former calls himself a “repair shop” and looks at postconsumer denim and the art of rafoogari. His installation features miniature shapes in which fragments of cloth have been reduced in size but not in meaning. Postconsumer denim—worn and faded— becomes a site to investigate ideas of labour and use.

The show becomes an interesting space to view how a particular artistic practice has evolved with time. Arya’s work is case in point. She had always been interested in the invisibilised labour of women, but the covid-19 pandemic changed her approach. When she went back to her hometown of Panipat, Haryana, she realised the scale of the garments upcycling industry in the city. Though migrant women were at the heart of it, their labour was not acknowledged. The women worked in hazardous conditions, resulting in lung infections, skin disease and longterm health issues. Arya started visiting the factories and engaging in conversations with the workers. Over the past six years, she has discovered several layers to the problems underlying the upcycling industry. “My engagement started with invisibilised labour, but now I am also looking at issues of groundwater pollution. Earlier, I focused on the ladies who gathered katran, or fragments, now I am also looking at the cotton and the dyeing industries. A small documentary is in the works,” she says.

For the exhibition, she has stitched together iron, brass wire and paper in both Skin Cover and Last Season to embody the pain and reality of women’s labour in the upcycling industry. The 8x10 ft sculptures feature three female figures, with faces in different stages of concealment—this signifies their response to the hazardous fumes that they are exposed to daily. “Used garments arrive in Panipat from all over the world. They ask, yeh kapda kahaan se aaya hai, who wore these garments?” shares Arya. The work is an ironic social commentary—those who need the clothes the most are compelled to go through discards as witnesses to the habits of consumption.

Katran is also central toThe Fifth by Ashita Singhal (Paiwand), which features embroidery with textile scraps on wood. “She entered the business of fashion seven years ago, when she would collect all thekatransfrom different brands and studios and weave them into new textiles. She would give those back to the same brands to be used in their collections,” explains Singh. In this show, she has made geometric abstracted figures from wood to symbolise the traits of each of her family members—her mother’s introspective wisdom, father’s steady resolve, and more. These have then been embroidered upon with textile waste. “These forms operate as bodies, where generational traits are absorbed, strained against, and transformed.The Fifth marks a deliberate departure from the familial construct, asserting an autonomous presence shaped by, yet no longer bound to, its origins,” states Singh’s curatorial note.

One of the most interesting practices on display is of Anuj Sharma, an Ahmedabad-based design professor. He created a technique called Button Masala, a simple joinery system using buttons and rubber bands to make sustainable and quick clothing. You don’t need cutting tools; rather the same garment can be reassembled in 10 different ways using this technique. Sharma feels that while sustainability of material has been discussed to death in the fashion industry, not many talk about the wastage of time and resources. For instance, for a wedding lehnga, a craftsperson spends hundreds of hours away from his family to create a garment for someone, who will wear it for a couple of hours and stow it away. “Fashion will never ever be all-sustainable. Garments have become associated with the idea of beauty rather than functionality. Everyone looks similar now, there is no unique identity associated with design,” Sharma says.

Through Button Masala, Sharma has taught nearly 50,000 people from all walks of life to make their own clothes with simple drapes. Singh adds: “It’s about making design more democratic, which is why he has not patented this technique.” For the show, Sharma has created Plastic ki Shav Yatra using waste food boxes and packets, bottles, spoons, combs, brushes and rubber bands. He asks viewers if plastic waste should be given a dignified sendoff. This stems from his own practice of collecting plastic waste and hanging it as curtains. “We show respect to a fellow human by giving them a dignified burial or cremation. Izzat se rukhsat karte hain. How do we accord those last rites to plastic waste?” he says. It’s a work that perfectly encapsulates the blend of personal experience and social critique, playfulness and experimentation that underlies the entire show.

At STIR Art Gallery, New Delhi, till 22 February, 11am-7pm.