Lakshmi Madhavan explores id, heritage by way of kasavu fabric, bridging artwork and custom by way of weavers

For conceptual artist Lakshmi Madhavan, the gossamer superb cotton fabric woven with gold zari (kasavu) is her chosen medium to discover a folks’s tales, tradition and social mooring. The Mumbai-based artist makes use of the kasavu-bordered cotton textile to discover her id, her roots and her efforts to bridge the totally different aspects of her life whereas juxtaposing her quest with the lives of the weavers.

For the final 5 years, Lakshmi has been intently working with weavers in Balaramapuram, 19 kilometres from Thiruvananthapuram. The endeavour merges a private quest along with her creative inspirations, “delving into the intersectionality of fabric, socio-cultural buildings and gender codes,” says Lakshmi.

Her choose works, Laboured Landscapes, have been a part of a bunch present, Three Steps of Land, at Los Angeles within the US. Curated by Rajiv Menon, the exhibition focussed on upcoming artists’ depicting Kerala or their thought of Kerala in numerous media.

Lakshmi explains that though many artists have their roots in Kerala, they grew up exterior the State. She says, “Like me, lots of them are looking for an id, for the ties that bind and separate us from our dad and mom and grandparents.”

Her assertion on her artwork says that her try has been to “reimagine the boundaries between artwork and craft, excessive and low artwork, home and public realms, female and masculine impulses and, as an alternative, deal with the depth and the nuances of a fancy, expressive observe,”

Lakshmi discovered her medium when she wished to pay homage to her paternal grandmother who handed away in 2021. With the assistance of the cotton and silk threads of the kasavu fabric, she travelled again in time to review the historical past and heritage of the fabric. “It was for the present Lokame Tharavadu, curated by Krishnamachari Bose, that I designed six panels with letters of the Malayalam alphabet and phrases that, indirectly, linked my grandmother and me.”

Lakshmi Madhavan’s works explores the numerous connections between physique and fabric.
| Picture Credit score:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The pristine cotton kasavu mundum-neriyathum symbolised her grandmother who solely wore these. “Widowed early in life, she was all the time wearing gold and white. It was not likely by selection. Going by the social norms of these occasions, she couldn’t put on brilliant colors, the karas and kasavus couldn’t be very broad and so forth.” Rising up round her, Lakshmi regularly realised that there’s a “advanced relationship between physique and fabric. That’s the place my journey started.”

Via the woven panels of her work, Lakshmi examines concepts of id, loss, connections, restoration and regeneration. “I really feel that the weavers of Balaramapuram, as a group, are experiencing and investigating these concepts of id and generational connections.” Lakshmi’s artwork with kasavu has developed as she reveals the totally different aspects of material and physique and her Malayali heritage.

Lakshmi Madhavan, who has been working with Balaramapuram weaves and Kasavu for the final 5 years, held her first solo exhibition, Generations in My Physique, at Akara Modern in Mumbai in 2024.
| Picture Credit score:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The artist muses that it has been a journey that additionally motivated the weavers to rethink and reimagine what one can do with kasavu as a textile, as there has not been a lot of innovation.

“Essentially the most vital innovation has been that the two-part mundum-neriyathu changing into a sari. Once I started partaking with the weavers, I had every kind of requests. I wished them to weave 7,000 letters, some in English, some in Malayalam; I wished them to broaden or contract the scale of what they often wove. I wished to make switches inside the thread, inside the weave itself.”

It was additionally difficult for the artist to get the group to just accept her and the weaving challenges she positioned. She says, “For years, they’ve been purveyors of superb clothes and one of the best expert weavers are 65-plus. To get them to study or attempt something new was an uphill job.”

Her work with the Worldwide Artists Collective, a studio and gallery in Copenhagen and her coaching with the German artist, Bernhard Martin on the Summer season Academy in Salzburg have helped her achieve new views throughout her creative journey. Jitish Kallat, curator and creative director of the 2014 Kochi Biennale, has additionally mentored her in Mumbai. Her first solo exhibition was Generations in My Physique, an exhibition at Akara Modern in Mumbai.

“Whereas working with the weavers and the fabric, I realised the a number of aspects of material and physique, as a societal marker with caste connotations, as an financial indicator and as a fabric with gendered tales.” She factors out that the way in which the woven piece of material was worn outlined an individual’s place in society, her caste, faith and financial standing.

Conceptual artist Lakshmi Madhavan’s works with Balaramapuram weaves and Kasavu to relate tales on id, roots, inheritance and loss.
| Picture Credit score:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

“Though the weavers are from a group that was thought of to be decrease within the caste hierarchy, these supposedly belonging to the higher castes purchased the fabric woven by them. However as soon as the fabric left the loom, they might not contact the fabric worn by the aristocracy. They might not afford to purchase it both!”

Lakshmi recollects how a weaver had instructed her that he may by no means afford to purchase the items he had been weaving for 30 years. Her try was to make use of the fabric to carry these narratives and perceive the legacy of the fabric and its future. “As one of many few gender-neutral garments in India, it was fascinating to review the way it has developed over the ages. When the Europeans first got here to Kerala, they discovered the mundu was worn by each women and men. And each have been bare-chested. It was regular for a lady in Kerala to be bare-chested, whether or not you have been royalty or commoner. I used to be focused on how that fabric, influenced by concepts of Victorian prudery, developed. First got here the melmundu to cowl the chest after which the jumper or the shirt.”

Quite a lot of these enquiries culminated in an exhibition that examines the politics of physique and fabric. Even the phrase physique is decoded by way of her questions on whether or not the phrase refers to a bodily physique or a group physique. Might or not it’s a caste physique or a generational physique? She says, “There are two parallel narratives— one is the story of the group in Balaramapuram and one other is my very own historical past, as being handed down generations.”

Utilizing shuttles, threads and woven items of material, Lakshmi visualises her story and traces her quest whereas additionally narrating the story of the Balaramapuram weavers who’re struggling to maintain their legacy alive as their successors transfer away from the standard occupation in the hunt for greener pastures.

“My grandmother wished me to maintain my roots alive though I had lived exterior Kerala. It’s the similar with the senior weavers in Balaramapuram who’re attempting to go on their extraordinary abilities and legacy to the youthful era.”