Eleven artistes have teamed up with handloom weavers from Panipat to recreate the town’s culture and history in their artworks. Neeti Nigam meets them at the factory where they are busy giving final touches before showcasing it to the exhibition next month
We know Panipat was the battleground of three major wars that changed the course of the history. Such was the impact that no other war location is as famous as Panipat is. Over the years, this satellite town has become synonym with textiles and carpets. Thousands of weavers work tirelessly to craft beautiful handlooms.
While fashion designers have always used indigenous weaves and crafts to present them on global platform, artists too, are collaborating with the weavers and learning their techniques. To honour their labour, curator Shailin Smith has brought 11 artists together at the factory of a leading manufacturing company of home furnishings. Smith said, “These artists have paid numerous visits here and have team ed up with the weavers. They found inspiration from their various techniques like the pit loom, kilim, tufting and braiding, and finally chose which method and material they want to use in their art form.”
Installation artist Puneet Kaushik has created three works each using a different technique. One such is a huge installation that represents the “human under their skin” and has been created using the hand tufting gun. This piece has been done using wool, metal wire and metal mesh. “It’s a red dome and it has two layers inside. It is our inner self and how we deal with it. It is meditative.
I mostly use red colour as it flows under everyone’s skin. It is a sense of identity that is neutral to everybody irrespective of which class they belong to,” said Kaushik who introduced master weaver Raman Goswami to us. “Whenever he told me to do tufting or use some other technique, I tried to convince him that it can’t happen in this material. After discussions, I understood his ideas and then executed it in a way that there shouldn’t be any compromise to his art,” said Goswami who was happy that their work will finally get recognition.
Calligraphy designer, Nikheel Aphale, has carved Kabir’s doha in Devanagari script to pay tribute to the weavers, “I have written kar, kari and kor which means, the weaver, the tool and hands. I kept it subtle and written it in a way that will engage audience. The weaver used different variations of the white wool. You’ll find their tools like katta carved on them. I have always used canvas but after working with them, I feel I should stick to the textile norm.”
Next time you visit Panipat, we suggest to you to look at the beautiful map that artist Nidhi Khurana has made. One of the most labourious artwork, Khurana used braided carpets for the base, then incorporated screen printing, hand tufting, pit loom weaving, kilim weaving, bath tufting, embroidery, applique work and chromojet printing. “I generally use maps in my art piece. My first few trips of this town were finding interesting locations to visit. Unfortunately, most of the historical sites are not frequented by the locals. I searched for maps and finally found it in a bad shape in the Panipat museum. So Shriramji (the weaver) braided the map and used all possible techniques to show the landmark sites, like the Ibrahim lodhi’s tomb, museum, et al.,”she explained.
The weaver used applique and sew the map on the base. The second layer was the print done by the different department, followed by the embroidery departments and so on.
Abeer Gupta has created a sound piece using all the ambient sounds from the factory. His idea is that both industry and artisans are important for each other. The track starts with the sound of bangles followed by human voices, machines and so on. “Those bangles are of the women who clean the wool. When you walk around the factory, you see an overbearing presence of the machines.
Then there is also human skill involved. The idea is to try a conversation between the industry and the human. The second is there is a constant play of space. In a small village, a weaver would craft one carpet but in a factory, hundreds of them—men/ women labour to make thousands of customers happy. Therefore, they need each other to exist,”said Gupta who used techniques to record the sound.
The Stainless Gallery on Mathura Road would showcase the works in the exhibition Fibre fables on November 21.