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Long earlier museums, archives oregon written histories documented women’s lives successful Punjab, their stories were patiently stitched into cloth. Phulkari, virtually ‘flower work’, emerged not arsenic an ornament but arsenic inheritance: a connection of colour, repetition and labour done which women marked birth, marriage, belief, mundane beingness and loss. Made wrong homes, often implicit years, these embroideries were ne'er meant for display. They were folded into trunks, wrapped astir bodies, exchanged astatine thresholds of life, and carried crossed generations — and, eventually, crossed borders.
At LATITUDE 28 successful Delhi’s Defence Colony, Sut te Saah: Stories Woven successful Phulkari brings this intimate satellite into presumption without stripping it of its affectional density. Presented by founder-director, LATITUDE 28, Bhavna Kakar and curated by Shreya Sharma, the accumulation brings unneurotic implicit 40 uncommon pre-Partition phulkaris and baghs from Punjab, tracing however women stitched memory, ritual and lived acquisition into cloth astatine a clip erstwhile their voices seldom entered ceremonial histories.
Drawn from the backstage and household collections of Brigadier Surinder and Shyama Kakar and decorator Amit Hansraj, the accumulation marks 1 of the archetypal large presentations of phulkaris and baghs astatine a backstage assemblage successful India. “This accumulation allows america to displacement the lens from trade arsenic peripheral to trade arsenic central, positioning phulkari arsenic a analyzable signifier of cognition produced by women,” says Bhavna. “These pieces, including those passed down from my great-great grandma to my mother, are embedded successful lived histories of kinship, migration and resilience.”
Marking thresholds of life
The accumulation unfolds crossed 3 interlinked sections: Sankraman (transition), Vishvaas ate Katha (belief and narrative) and Rihaish (dwelling and mundane life). “Certain forms marked thresholds wrong a life,” Shreya explains.
In Sankraman, phulkari emerges arsenic a bearer of blessing, extortion and continuity. Chope phulkaris, traditionally embroidered by maternal grandmothers and talented to brides, clasp the tenderness of beginnings. Vari-da-Bagh glows with auspicious motifs that hindrance families and communities. Dense, luminous baghs unfold similar fields of colour, reflecting corporate labour. Thirma, with its restrained achromatic ground, carries associations of purity, and the quieter passages of life.
Vishvaas ate Katha brings unneurotic faith, folklore and oral memory. Sainchi phulkaris, affluent with figurative scenes, seizure colony beingness successful each its bushed — cultivation labour, home routines, humour and moments of valour. The last section, Rihaish, turns inward, towards mundane life. Here, phulkari appears not arsenic spectacle but arsenic beingness — folded into trunks, brought retired astatine peculiar moments, softly shaping women’s worlds crossed generations.
“For america astatine LATITUDE 28, worldly civilization has ever been a surviving archive,” says Bhavna. “As conversations astir textile traditions progressively hazard being flattened into décor oregon nostalgia, it was important to reclaim phulkari arsenic a rigorous ocular and taste language.”
Memory aft Partition
Partition runs done the accumulation without spectacle. Many of the works were created earlier 1947 but lived with aft — carried crossed borders, homes and identities. “Partition is not treated arsenic a distant backdrop,” Shreya notes. “It reshaped the lives carried wrong these textiles. Rather than isolating it arsenic a azygous infinitesimal of loss, the accumulation attends to however rupture settles into mundane life.”
That consciousness of continuity is embodied successful the dependable of Bhavna’s paternal grandmother, Ram Kumari Kakar, immoderate of whose phulkaris were aboriginal inherited by her daughter-in-law, Shyama. “These phulkaris were not made by 1 brace of hands alone,” Ram Kumari recalls. “My sisters, bhabhis and I worked connected them unneurotic nether my mother’s watchful oculus — she was the astir talented among us. Each pistillate had her ain skill, the cloth passing from manus to manus with nary tracing, lone nonstop calculation.”
She besides remembers the worldly routes that fed this home practice: pat silk arriving from Peshawar with the Pathans, valued “as highly arsenic its value successful silver”.
Collectors Rahul Sharma and Shreya , who are admirers of the exhibition, talk of encountering phulkari archetypal arsenic lived inheritance alternatively than collectible artefact. “We were drawn to them done an accumulation successful Philadelphia, wherever we understood them arsenic family-made objects created for idiosyncratic usage alternatively than commerce,” they say. One of the astir meaningful pieces connected view, Rahul recalls, is simply a elemental antique phulkari his parent draped implicit his woman during their roka ceremony. “Its worth lies not successful plan complexity, but successful the affectional discourse successful which it was used.”
Alongside the textiles, boliyan, oral fragments and idiosyncratic references are woven done the space, recreating the societal and affectional worlds successful which phulkari was made and used. Rather than transforming home objects into spectacle, Sut te Saah extends representation and belonging from the location into the gallery.
The accumulation is connected until Januray 26, from Monday to Sunday, 11am to 7pm at LATITUDE 28, B-74, Ground Floor, Block B, Defence Colony, New Delhi.
