Chintz to Prints : Patron X Collector
Sunny Narang | 22 November, 2022
I call this collaboration between the one and only Peter Lee, Singapore collector and scholar of Indian and #ASEAN textiles, and a master #Kalamkari painter Niranjan, who has an iconic lineage, as son of the illustrious Jonnalagadda Gurappa Chetty, to do a workshop sharing and doing together the purest processes of Kalamkari, along with sharing with real textile pieces, how Kalamkari trade influenced #Sumatra and #Indonesian #Batik textiles and later the cheap copies made by English roller printing units, a #CompletingTheCircle knowledge exchange across geography and history.
This knowledge exchange was curated and imagined by Nalina Gopal through #Antati, her museum consulting entity based in Singapore, and financially supported by Hari Vadlamani , Akanksha Damini Joshi and mine founded Center for Embodied Knowledge, based in Hyderabad.
This 12 minute video shows the Collector and the Patron speaking about why they both supported this knowledge exchange, with their desire to build an awareness of complexity of historical events and processes, with empathy to all sides, no simple blaming, and how all this can be seen through micro-histories of something like textile trade and aesthetic influences.
It’s also a sensible call to reduce the shrillness that has taken over in present day public discourse.
The idea is not to “flatten” history with simplistic ideological lenses but to see it like the “messy” terrain it is with the complicity of all concerned.
Textile histories are a part of the #MaterialHistories of our civilizations and studying these shows us how since eternity we all have been influenced and influenced, all cultures and civilizations.
It’s a symphony where different instruments play harmonies or disharmonies at various phases.
Music being one of the most quickly to carry the influences, then arts & crafts, then deeper dialogues of philosophies, healing knowledges, cuisines and ways of being.
This Diwali let’s celebrate as I worded it “Dream an Infinite Weave of All in Love & LIght”
Sunny has worked with and mentored people as well as start-ups at all levels and in a number of industries across India.
For 20 years he committed his energies and innovations to help in the transformation of the Indian crafts sector focusing on turning sustainable development into viable enterprises.
Subsequently he guided a number of cutting-edge start-ups, design enterprises, sports businesses and retail ventures.