The bamboo poles cease simply in need of grazing the partitions of the seventeenth century construction that, for 10 days, housed Pampa: Textiles of Karnataka — offered by the Abheraj Baldota Foundation, in collaboration with Karnataka’s division of tourism and the Archaeological Survey of India. A cautious matrix of comparable poles, held collectively sturdily with jute ropes, criss-cross the aged ceiling of the Mantapa Photo Exhibition Centre and maintain the magnificent textiles.
In a method, the exhibition design is an apt metaphor for the intent behind Pampa: one among constructing connections between the previous and the brand new, every displaying off the opposite to their finest benefit to revive curiosity within the textiles of the state. “What we need is a synergy,” says Lavina Baldota, who made her curatorial presence felt because the patron of Sutr Santati: Then, Now, Next, a celebration of Indian textiles in 2022. Pampa is her sixth presentation, an ode to her marital residence of Karnataka.
Lavina Baldota
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy of the Baldota Foundation
The state is just not the primary to be related to a robust or storied textile legacy, particularly on the subject of effective materials — compared to, say, Bengal or Gujarat or nearer residence, to Tamil Nadu — however Pampa (an historical identify for the mighty Tungabhadra), she hopes, will assist it declare its rightful place within the solar. “As a survey exhibition, the first iteration of Pampa sets the framework for further work that the Baldota Foundation intends to take up in the region,” she provides. “The research will deepen, followed by documentation, revivals, and new commissions leading to exhibitions in other cities in Karnataka and beyond.”
Nayaka Kalamkari panel (cotton; handwoven, hand-drawn, resist-dyed utilizing pure dyes) commissioned to Sriyasmita Mishra and Vipin Das of Chennai-based Aksh Studio
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy of the Baldota Foundation
Crafting an ecosystem
It’s a formidable ambition however there are few higher positioned than Baldota to understand it. As custodian of the 54-year-old Abheraj Baldota Foundation, an affiliate of the diversified Baldota Group, with companies in mining, energy, metal and comparable core industrial areas, she is uniquely positioned to tug collectively discrete work on crafts and textiles — her core curiosity areas, constructing on an schooling in trend and textiles — and supply them a highly effective platform. Like the bamboo poles within the historic construction, Baldota permits weavers, designers, practitioners to get in contact with their desired audiences, together with market-facing counterparts, in order to construct a full ecosystem.
Installation of Navalgund durries
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy of the Baldota Foundation
In a method, it’s a acutely aware effort to replace the finely balanced honeycomb of farmers, spinners, weavers, dyers, merchants, transporters that existed within the pre-colonial heydays of handwoven Indian textiles. Today’s set-up nonetheless requires all of them, however it additionally wants champions who can take mental possession, in a method of talking, of specific textile clusters to create documentation, disseminate info, forge connections, design for brand spanking new generations and assist construct respectful markets.
That that is no remoted endeavour is clear from the truth that Pampa is the twentieth textile exhibition Mayank Mansingh Kaul has curated prior to now 10 years; it’s additionally his fourth for the Baldota Foundation. By any requirements, that’s a powerful quantity, given the months of analysis every of them should have required. But it’s as spectacular as an indicator for the elevated urge for food for textile data among the many cognoscenti and the curious.
Installation view of the exhibition
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy of the Baldota Foundation
Saris and their tales
Featuring 108 textiles in 9 sections, the exhibition (March 1-10) hits all the proper notes, together with an early Kalamkari recreation of the Shiva-Parvati marriage ceremony mural on the central ranga mantapa ceiling of the seventh century Virupaksha temple, and a show of the Tricolour in khadi, crafted in close by Hubbali. The Karnataka Khadi Gramodyoga Samyukta Sangha is one among solely 5 models authorised to make the nationwide flag in its initially mandated weave. “When we set out on our research trips a few years ago, Lavina and I thought we’d find maybe 10 examples of handmade textiles,” says Kaul. “Instead, the further we travelled, the more we acquired.”
The curatorial group (L-R) Pragati Mathur, Lavina Baldota, Mayank Mansingh Kaul, and Nupur Saxena
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy of the Baldota Foundation
Deflecting often-justified criticism concerning the elite contents of textile exhibitions, Pampa makes it a level to showcase clothes and home-linen of every day use: summer-friendly lungis, sheepwool kambli (blankets), shiny Navalgud durries. There are additionally good examples of vibrant Lambani embroidery and geometric kasuti work, each of which have discovered business success in lots of varieties.
The Lambani enclosure, that includes the Day and Night Sky tent, showcases the intricate stitches of the Lambani tribe together with the dupatta, bangles, and lehenga-choli of Banjara girls. It additionally consists of a Kora Khadi
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy of the Baldota Foundation
Each of the textiles on show carries its personal story, however maybe none is extra emotive than those woven into the warp and weft of saris. Historically, when artisans took to their looms, they discovered inspiration within the nature round them. Though a lot has modified over the centuries for Indian textiles, the hand-fans and turtles woven into the textured Kotpad handlooms of Odisha, for example, nonetheless survive. Likewise, the ceremonial patteda anchus of Gajendragarh — initially made as an providing to native deity Yellamma — nonetheless use a joyous palette of mustards, maroons, greens and pinks and abjure inauspicious black.
Ilkals, with their distinctive tope-teni (loops-joined) pallus, pay homage to the jowar (sorghum) that grows throughout the farming city; the design is impressed by the stalks of the crop, and the homegrown sari was additionally the agriculturists’ favorite drape. Multiple comparable tales tumble out over the following few days: the vivid pink palla of 1 is a tribute to menstrual blood, the woven border of one other resembles rooster toes as a simple promote to a poultry-farming neighborhood, and plenty of extra.
Inspired by the temple carvings of the Vijayanagar dynasty and the drawings of Dr. Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat, these textile panels are block printed on handwoven silk-cotton cloth
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy of the Baldota Foundation
Born from the previous
The most putting a part of the exhibition, for this author at the least, is the juxtaposed collections of a number of practitioners. Some, like Pavithra Muddaya of Vimor, the textile model from Bengaluru, would baulk at being referred to as designers, regardless of their years of labor within the discipline, however they’ve taken conventional weaves of the state and made them their very own, whereas sustaining their conventional constructions and motifs.
Silk ghagra and dupatta with Kasuti embroidery designed by Gaurang Shah
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy of the Baldota Foundation
Khann or khana, for instance, is a narrow-width material of geometrical designs generally used for tailoring blouses in neighbouring southern Maharashtra. But, within the fingers of National Institute of Design graduate Geeta Patil, it finds fabulous expression in saris.
Equally marvellous is the sq. inch-by-square inch recreation of a 150-year-old Molakalmuru, the eponymous textile of a city in Karnataka’s Chitradurga district. In a state the place the rich fell again on both Banaras or Kanchipuram for his or her occasionwear, Molakalmuru has lengthy been recognized for saris brocaded in silk and metallic yarns. At Baldota’s course, exhibition curators Pragati Mathur and Nupur Saxena sourced a magnificent blue-and-red silk from Bengaluru-based textile aficionado Uma Rao and satisfied her to half with it briefly. They then scoured Molakalmuru until they zeroed in on grasp weaver D.S. Manjunath.
Installation of the Molkalamoru saris
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy of the Baldota Foundation
“Initially, I was very confident of being able to replicate the sari,” says Manjunath on the exhibition, as he introduces his work. “Then I turned it over, saw the underside and the incredible fineness of the work, and said it’s impossible.” With encouragement and time, although, Manjunath was profitable in his efforts — and he even improved on it, by guaranteeing the double-parrot motifs on the intersection of the physique and the palla have been an evenly spaced dozen, as a substitute of the 12-and-a-half as within the unique.
Perhaps some of the rewarding takeaways of a well-curated exhibition is to witness its shows in a continuum. While there’ll undoubtedly be a domino impact, Pampa will most likely be finest served if it travels again to the place all of it started, to Ilkal and Navalgud and Molkalmuru and all the opposite clusters, bearing information of curiosity and funding to get the looms working with renewed vigour.
The author is an editor and researcher based mostly in Bengaluru.
Published – March 20, 2025 01:25 pm IST
