Sq. roots: Lambadi artisans sew the extraordinary into the extraordinary

At Dwelling in Sittilingi is an exhibition of embroidered textile artwork created by 10 girls artisans from the Lambadi group. The works are stitched on natural cotton and draw from reminiscence and speedy environment — timber that encompass them, tales heard from elders, birds marking seasonal change, millets grown of their fields, and the intricacies of home life.

Held at Sabha, a thoughtfully restored 160-year-old dwelling in Bengaluru with quiet flooring and sunlit corridors, the open, home-like setting lends the present a way of intimacy. Guests go away their footwear on the threshold, getting into barefoot — an unstated gesture of reverence and groundedness. This straightforward act modifications the way in which we interact. We step softly. We pause longer. We meet the works not as distant observers, however as listeners in a room filled with tales. The anecdotal texts accompanying every embroidery, written by the ladies themselves, add texture and voice, making the gallery really feel much less like a show and extra like a gathering.

At Dwelling in Sittilingi at Sabha
| Picture Credit score:
R Kishore Kumaar

An ‘at dwelling’ residency

The works have been developed via a four-month artist residency hosted by the Porgai Artisans Affiliation throughout an “at-home” residency, an artist assist mannequin the place the ladies continued to reside and work inside their very own context (at a studio on the Porgai centre) quite than being displaced into unfamiliar institutional settings. Curated by designer Anshu Arora, the residency invited the ladies to mirror, bear in mind, and reimagine from inside their very own floor.

Geetha, one of many 10 artisans, holds up her art work embroidered with inexperienced bee-eaters
| Picture Credit score:
Melanie Hinds

Lalitha Regi, co-founder of Porgai, which means satisfaction and dignity within the Lambadi dialect, and a senior physician on the Tribal Well being Initiative, affords perception into the complexity of participation: “The ladies needed to make many selections of their home lives earlier than committing to the residency. It required them to journey 12 kilometres — an unremarkable distance for us, however a world of variables for them. Catching the one bus, guaranteeing folks at dwelling are fed, kids taken care of, chores and farm labour attended to… every of their lives holds its personal intricate challenges. As soon as they have been made to really feel secure, financially and emotionally, and given possession over their work and creativity, we noticed magic.”

That ambiance of belief and co-creation formed the work itself. Over the months, hesitation gave option to confidence, and the acquainted grammar of Lambadi embroidery reworked into one thing layered, narrative, and imaginative.

Most of the embroideries carry a playfulness that feels each deliberate and deeply private: a crooked-beaked chicken, a smiling cow, a parrot with twinkling eyes, a bee-eater providing a refined wink. These usually are not naive gildings, however visible signatures of a relationship with the pure world that’s familial, reciprocal, and filled with mirth. The wildlife in these textiles usually are not passive surroundings. They’re kin. There’s humour, reminiscence, and mischief sewn into the leaves and wings — suggesting a means of being with nature that’s much less about dominance and extra about camaraderie.

Two of the Lambadi girls with their art work
| Picture Credit score:
Melanie Hinds

Rejecting curation as an act of management

The Affiliation has been energetic in Sittilingi for over 18 years. It started with the revival of Lambadi embroidery and has grown right into a cooperative mannequin that centres the artisan not as labourer, however as information holder, designer, and cultural custodian. Right this moment, the collective has 60 girls. They’re paid pretty, retain management of their course of, and make choices as a gaggle.

The curation of this exhibition displays that ethos. “Too typically, curation turns into an act of management — an train in authoriality,” says Arora. “With Porgai, I needed to carry area with out shaping it. The artists already know what they need to say.”

Firewood assortment 
| Picture Credit score:
Vandita Bajpai

Every artist started with a six-inch sq.. The modest body served as scaffold and risk. From there, they embroidered each independently and collectively, shaping works that have been without delay singular and collective, a complete of 26 items — the smallest being 21” x 11.5” and the biggest being 50” x 36.5”. In some circumstances, they stitched their imaginations facet by facet: 10 interpretations of the sky, every in a unique hue, texture, and temper, have been sewn collectively into a bigger tapestry of ambiance.

10 interpretations of the sky
| Picture Credit score:
Melanie Hinds

In one other, they explored the bottom beneath their toes, rendering stones, shadows, leaves, and soil with a sensitivity to texture and lightweight. Different works emerged via collaborative storyboarding: giant items of material have been mapped and divided amongst them to depict scenes of each day life — a marriage, an agricultural routine, the choreography of water assortment. They used greater than 21 conventional Lambadi stitches (such because the maki and bhurai) and a few newly invented ones by the artisans.

Every work is accompanied by a word from its maker. Neela speaks of ancestors. Lavanya goals of bees. Parimala embroiders the Porgai centre so her grandchildren may bear in mind it. Selvi’s stream flows with layered cloth mimicking rock undulations.

 Neela, who speaks of ancestors
| Picture Credit score:
Himanshu Dimri

Arora additionally situates this ethos inside a broader design discourse. “The definition of luxurious is altering. It now could be about objects with a narrative and human connection — handcrafted, talking of the individual behind the merchandise, made slowly and intentionally, with care, ethics, and non-exploitative methods in place. The wealthy textiles and crafts of our subcontinent are coming alive fantastically on this gentle.”

Past revival

In India, the artwork world continues to mirror caste and sophistication divides. “Artwork” is gallery-validated, city, and elite. “Craft” is rural, female, lower-caste — and systemically undervalued. Porgai rejects this binary not via argument however via assertion. These are embroidered works with conceptual readability, formal integrity, and cultural density. They’re artwork. They’re testimony. They’re methods of understanding.

Artworks with conceptual readability and cultural density
| Picture Credit score:
Himanshu Dimri

As Arora notes, “A whole lot of textile designers and professionals in allied fields are doing revival work. I hope all of us sustain with nourishing these communities in ways in which make them self-sustaining. As designers and facilitators, the success of our work is when it’s short-term — after we can step out finally, and what we began has a lifetime of its personal, runs itself, and blooms and prospers by the folks at its core.”

Porgai holds exactly that promise. It’s a physique of labor the place course of and product align, the place care isn’t an afterthought however the technique. It reveals that aesthetics needn’t be indifferent from ethics. That making will be mutual, and exquisite issues will be made with out violence.

At Dwelling in Sittilingi is on view at Sabha until tomorrow.

The essayist and educator writes on design and tradition.