Reimagining kantha embroidery for a new generation

For traditional crafts to survive, preserving them may not be enough—they may also need to be reimagined. That’s the idea an ongoing exhibition in Delhi explores, using West Bengal’s kantha embroidery to revive old textiles.

It starts with a five-foot-long painting, featuring the Tree of Life rendered in Telugu typography on cotton cloth. A signature at the bottom reveals it was handpainted in 2013 by kalamkari artist Jonnalagadda Niranjan. Look closer and you will notice that the painting has been “held together” by kantha. Two steps back, and the stitches melt into the painting.

“When we first got it from the owner, the fabric was in tatters,” says Amit Vijaya, co-founder of design label Amrich Designs, who teamed up with Utsaco, a small Bengal-based platform that works with kantha artisans, to revive the textile painting. “Another five years and it would have decomposed. So, we decided to work on it (with kantha).”

Twenty-odd other pieces, presented as fabrics framed as wall hangings, reiterate the same idea: the evolution of a traditional embroidery, kantha in this case, or craft is as essential as its survival. They are part of an ongoing exhibition at Gallery Vayu titled Threads that Bind: The Kantha Project, curated by Vijaya. All the works, created on pre-loved textiles, have been produced over a span of three years by artisans from Weavers Studio, Utsaco, Mahua Natural Fabrics (all in Kolkata) and Delhi-based Amrich Designs.

“Kantha comes from the Sanskrit word kontha, which means ‘rags’,” explains Delhi-based Vijaya, who was born and brought up in Kolkata. Traditionally, women in Bengal turned old saris and dhotis into quilts, layering the fabrics using a simple running stitch and creating patterns from whatever they saw in their daily life. “They were basically painting with thread,” he says. “In many ways, Indians were recycling or upcycling long before those terms became fashionable, but what we now see at fairs and bazaars being sold as kantha is often stitching done on new fabrics, and mostly polyester.”

Vijaya describes the show as a “technique exhibition to reintroduce people to kantha and the many roles it can play.”

These roles are evident in each of the pieces on display. In one work, kantha has been stitched on shibori-dyed fabric, with each petal motif carefully stuffed with cotton filling to create a subtle 3D effect. So intricate is the workmanship that the reverse side of the piece is almost as striking as the front. On both sides, the motif resembles a white flower glowing softly under moonlight. “Kantha is the supporting actor here,” Vijaya says.

A few steps away is another work that at first glance looks like a pinwheel painted on paper. But it is entirely embroidery, created over a period of eight months.

The show also points towards the diversity of textile traditions across India. Opposite this piece is a frame displaying a phulkari dupatta—another form of threadwork from Punjab—created using silk floss thread to form mostly geometric patterns. If kantha is subtle, phulkari is shiny.

Perhaps the most fascinating work in the show is one where an old jamdani sari has been embroidered with the lotiform motif of the sapling of the Indian indigo plant (Indigofera tinctoria), grown by Utsaco in Bengal, and coloured in varying shades of indigo. Here, kantha is the “hero”. Towards the end, I am presented with a black silk fabric that has doodhiya kantha embroidery, unique to artisans at Mahua Natural Fabrics in Bengal.

The show offers an example of how interventions by designers can help artisans think beyond the traditional styles of any kind of embroidery and, in the process, create something new to attract consumers. “There have been instances when artisans weren’t very willing to do what we were asking, so it took a lot of convincing. As designers, we need to find ways to create something new with the old. How else will you bring in the new consumer?” asks Vijaya. “For us, designers, the selfish part is that we want the craft to survive and evolve. It has to keep moving in some way. The West is already impressed by us; what we need to do is impress people at home.”

Till 20 March, at Gallery Vayu, Lodhi Road, Delhi.