Commentary | Kavita Daiya, Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, and Transnational Dialogue: Reframing South Asian Textile Arts
Image provided courtesy of the author. For more see: https://museum.gwu.edu/handmade-creating-textiles-south-asia.
Last spring, as the pandemic was beginning to take hold, the George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum were preparing to install an exhibition of textiles from South Asia. Featuring new work by artists living in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan alongside rarely-seen objects from the museum’s collection, the exhibition Handmade: Creating Textiles in South Asia, was initiated as a curatorial collaboration between Cristin McKnight Sethi, Assistant Professor of Art History at GW, and students in her seminar “Craft and Gender in South Asia” (Spring 2019), which was cross-listed with the Art History program and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) program. The idea behind the exhibition was to explore the different ways that contemporary makers (many of whom self-identify as “artisans,” “craftspeople” or “folk artists”) work with traditional modes, materials, and/or forms of textiles that have deep historical roots in South Asia. By August 2020, the exhibition was ready to open to the public. However, the museum remained closed, like many institutions, due to COVID-19 health concerns. As a way to launch the exhibition in a virtual format, Prof. Sethi worked with the museum and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at GW to conceptualize and create a webinar series that featured artists and the broader themes connected with the exhibition.
Integrated into the pedagogical project of her introductory course on South Asian art here at GW, the three webinars in these series regularly attracted over 100 participants, beyond Sethi’s students. They gave GW’s students a rare opportunity to virtually meet artists and creators of different textiles, and learn about the material history, cultural contexts, and creative influences of these art objects. I participated in the first webinar “Textiles, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship in India.” I served as a panelist along with noted American anthropologist and Ashoka Fellow Judy Frater, and five textile artists in India. In the numerous planning video meetings with artists and scholars across the US and India, I got a behind the scenes view into the time-consuming, painstaking labor that Sethi has put into creating these spaces for knowledge dissemination and cross-cultural engagement for her students.
My experience in seeing the interplay of this rich webinar series and her course AH 2191 “South Asian Art” shows me that this creates interdisciplinary connections for students in the study of Asian art. It exemplifies the Engaged Liberal Arts, insofar as it guides students to approach the study of the creative arts through a method that links aesthetic analysis with civic engagement and cross-cultural dialogue in a global context.
Image provided courtesy of the author. For more see: https://museum.gwu.edu/handmade-creating-textiles-south-asia.
The first webinar entitled "Exhibition Program: Textiles, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship in India," introduced students to creative textile artists in western India who discussed their creations for the exhibit, their inspirations, and their entrepreneurship. These artists of Bandhani and Ajrakh textiles as well as embroidery addressed the historical changes in textile production and materials. They also explained how globalization, migration, and gender shape their contemporary creations, and shared their global aspirations, and the challenges they face in order to reach an audience given COVID-19. This webinar, as well as others that followed, beautifully extended the in-class learning ongoing AH 2191. They brought to life the history of South Asian art that the students were discovering in her course, while also teaching them about the socio-economic and cultural challenges these artists face in their quest to create their art. In this successful webinar, over 100 attendees learned about western India's textile art forms like Bandhani and Ajrakh, by meeting artists who have graduated from Somaiya Kala Vidya, a school for traditional artisans that was founded by Frater in 2014.
Artists Zakiya and Adil Khatri, and their brands, as well as Rabari embroidery artist Sajnuben are part of the Somaiya Kala Vidya community and have works currently on display at the Textile Museum. Follow the Khatris on Instagram at @zakiya_khatri and learn more about their stunning works! Laxmiben Parmar and Akib Khatri also displayed their creations and shared their inspiration. They spoke about entrepreneurship, their global aspirations, and the challenges of reaching an audience given COVID-19.
The second webinar, “Textile Economies in Pakistan,” centered on a conversation between my colleague and political scientist Deepa Ollapally (Research Professor of International Affairs and Associate Director, Sigur Center for Asian Studies) and members of the non-profit SABAH, which work with homebased textile artists in Pakistan. Artist Gohar Saajid shared her role as a leader within SABAH and the process for creating an extraordinary embroidered phulkari shawl that is in the Handmade exhibition. Participants in this webinar learned about the importance of embroidery for women’s economic independence and agency as well as the significant cultural roots of this art form in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan.
The terrific concluding webinar, “Textiles as Community Empowerment in South Asia", gathered four entrepreneurs and craft advocates from three countries: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. My colleague and geographer Elizabeth Chacko (Associate Provost, Mt. Vernon campus) offered an illuminating response. Held on December 3, 2020, this webinar centered on a discussion of how textiles reinforce community ties while simultaneously crossing the political borders of the subcontinent. Professor Chacko was joined by Anita Reddy, founder of DWARAKA in Southern India; Mahua Lahiri, artist and founder of Hushnohana in Kolkata, India; Noorjehan Bilgrami, founder of Kohl Gallery in Karachi, Pakistan; and Shahid Shanim, founder of Prabartana in Dhaka, Bangladesh. WGSS Executive Committee faculty member Professor Chacko added her perspective on the linkages between transnationalism and development, and also posed questions that generated a fascinating dialogue about women’s empowerment, caste oppression, color, transnational collaboration, Partition, sustainability, and more.
In this fascinating dialogue with activists and entrepreneurs on the ground in three countries, students experienced a unique opportunity to learn about how artists, through their various organizations promoting indigenous textiles, were advancing social justice. They were promoting women’s empowerment, reducing caste oppression, and advancing sustainability. This webinar series thus vividly taught students how civic engagement can ground the stakes of artistic entrepreneurship. It also showed them how international collaboration and dialogue through art can advance geopolitical peace.
Kavita Daiya is Director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, and Associate Professor of English, at George Washington University. Her scholarship revolves around the cultural histories and socio-political legacies of modern migrations, and is located at the intersection of Postcolonial Studies, Asian American Studies, feminist critique, and critical race theory.
To cite this essay, please use the suggested entry below:
Kavita Daiya, “Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, and Transnational Dialogue: Reframing South Asian Textile Arts,” criticalasianstudies.org Commentary Board, February 1, 2021; https://doi.org/10.52698/IBXK1739.