Connecting Threads

Samant's interactive work draws attention to the handmade production of textiles through the loom, while creating a fabric that metaphorically represents the varied demographic that together forms the fabric of Mumbai.

​Hailing from a family of textile artisans, Nai frequently uses discarded clothes, compressed together to create minimalist geometric forms. Displayed within a frame, these forms tread the line between painting and sculpture, promoting the idea of recycling & sustainability.

The artist wraps a chandelier in red wool, transforming it and assigning it new meanings. The act of wrapping red wool is time-consuming and repetitive, highlighting the meditative process. Metaphorically, the chandelier represents female Shakti – the giver of light.

The show features two works by Anju Dodiya, Beehive, and Ignition, flanked on both sides of the Museum's staircase. The works are evocative of upholsteries used in household spaces. It lays bare the tensions between personal, political and collective histories and events.

The series Vices is based on the seven deadly sins, a popular theme among 14th century European artists. Vanity, one of the seven vices, was a common theme of traditional still life painting referring to the transient nature of physical beauty. 

In this work Ah (Oh sigh), the wrapped fibreglass objects with black velvet explode from the canvas like menacing surreal hands, about to grab the viewer. The juxtaposition of an image of protesting marginalized people with threatening velvet structures creates a poetic frisson.

The Navarasa Suite (Sringara, Hasya, Bhibhatsa, Karuna, Shanta, Veera, Adbhuta, Raudra, Bhayanaka) is a set of self-portraits based on 9 moods of the Rasa theory of Indian Aesthetics. Through the works, Pushpamala questions stereotypical conventions associated with femininity.

This work attempts to take textiles and transform them into spatial metaphors, engaging the viewer with cultural narratives seeping from the physicality of the medium of fabric. The rudimentary impression of the work is derived from temporary relief shelters/tents pitched at sites of displacement, migration and various intensities of these situations.

The artist's Rozgar series draws from a 19th-century manuscript depicting professions in Kashmir. Sheikh recreates figures of labourers and tools, by hand on tracing paper. She articulates her understanding of miniature painting traditions and skills and layers her works with textual references to reflect on contemporary socio-political and cultural discourses.

Dawood interweaves histories, realities and symbolism to create richly layered artworks. The original textiles, from which Dawood’s works are based, were created by nomadic weavers in South Asia through the 1970s. Composed of discarded scraps from textile factories, the fabrics also attest to an earlier, more utopian globalisation.

In this work, viewers are invited to walk along a passage of fabric panels that depict Lazaro’s family history. The association between the images and patterns within his work appears to be linked ostensibly with the artists’ memories.