Voice Of The Embroiderer: Rethinking Narrative

Voice Of The Embroiderer

Produced during Masters graduation project at ArtEZ Institute of The Arts, Arnhem, Netherlands. 

An on-site research project conducted inside the karkhana (workshop) and home of embroiderer craftsmen living in Bandra East, Mumbai, India. It brought about a series of seven commissioned embroidered works, a video works, accompanied by an essay “The Labourers Craft”

The practice of embroidery as craft, the embroiderers and their lived experiences as craftsmen, and the relation to complex socio-cultural, economic contexts, correlating to class structure, labour, craftsmanship and community were explored through research activities  that produced and created works categorically referred to as four enactments.

• Enactment I, The Self Embroidered Portraits; investigations of self expression of three embroiderers from a series of seven commissioned embroidered works.

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‘Istiaq Shaikh’ is one of three works of section Enactment I: The Self Embroidered Portraits focusing on investigations of self expression of three embroiderers. They were commissioned in order to investigate the voice and identity as part of a group of highly skilled craftsmen embroiderers living and working in their workshop in a subaltern neighbourhood of Mumbai, India. This work is created by one of the embroiderers Istiaq Shaikh applying his embroidery techniques as self portraiture. One of my contributions in this project was to create a space for artistic expressions in which the craftsmen could reflect on their identity through their embroidery practice. In India craftsmen are referred to as the ‘karigar’

This terminology reflects the hierarchy of Indian social and economic divide, the class and caste structure and labour conditions. Istiaq Shaikh as well, refers to himself as ‘karigar’ he created his self portrait as ‘disco dancing Micheal Jackson’. 

• Enactment II, Embroidery Techniques and Interpretation; Three commissioned works from a series of seven that looked into embroidery techniques and embroidery as a craft.

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‘The Hungarian Motif’. One of three works of section Enactment II of the seven works, investigating hand-embroidery from a level of skill, knowledge of techniques and its interpretive application in India. This portrays hand-embroidery such as Zardosi. Zardosi, uses pure silver or gold wire in a highly skilled embroidery technique of royal historical patronage circa seventeen century. Today, craftsmen embroiderers use copper wire in zardosi for high fashion and ceremonial wedding attire in a highly commercialised garment industry. While hand embroidery techniques such as Zardosi take a great amount of time to produce, the value of these skills and techniques are lost and employed within the fashion industry as ornamentation on garments bringing recognition to the fashion designer only. Are the embroiderers who provide craftsmanship skills only labourers for ornamentation of a garment?

This work is a reproduction of referential information from the Hungarian arts. Traced from a booklet bought from the Ethnographic Museum in Budapest, Hungary, uses the motif design symbol signifying the national Coat of Arms dating to Austro-Hungarian Empire circa 1848-1849 appropriated into Indian embroidery.

• Enactment III, Panel Piece Embroidery Dreamscape; A work from a series of seven that was created through participation through embroidering with the community of embroiderers at the kharkhana

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‘Panel Piece Embroidery Dreamscape’  in display, is analogous to what embroidery defines itself as, that of a decorative craft of textile art of luxe embellishment.  The Panel Piece combines highly skilled embroidery techniques, zardosi, appliqué  and aari for the motif the tea pot that pours itself onto the floral pattern laterally undulating through the taffeta silk fabric. In contrast, uses basic embroidery running stitches on the goats with more intricate stitching for the chicken motifs. From the bunch of bananas to the tea pot all form a pictorial linear, idealised romanticised narrative. 

As these various motifs make up a dreamscape of idyllic chickens and goats lazing around and about on the floral motif they depict an ironic representation of a harsher reality. 

The neighbourhood location and community life of living at the workshop of the embroiderers resonated with a sense of living in the time of medieval guilds. The karkhana(workshop) located in an unorganised neighbourhood, homes and alleyways merging without distinction between house, pavement and road. The goats tied up, and a cultural signifier of a predominantly Muslim community and the chickens wandering around next to the poultry and mutton shops that lined the streets. The bunch of bananas my tokenism to the community in exchange for chai and chatting in the evenings a pragmatic method to engage myself in the space of the karkhana where I wanted to work together with the embroiderers. The act of co-creative participation was embroidering the panel piece to install myself an outsider,  within the karkhana and the embroiderers, a sense of togetherness. The neighbourhood location and community life paralleled an alternate historical era that of the time of medieval guilds. 

The Panel Piece nonetheless became emblem of certain observational anecdotal experiences applied as embroidery since this was a craft that was created to embellish decoratively but only subversively since it was created within a subaltern neighbourhood far from a dreamworld of luxe embroidery of borderie d’art.

• Enactment IV, A video Essay, ‘Untitled’ A Video Essay of 8:22 minutes

  Year: 2017

Material: HD Video

Dimensions of the work in centimetres: 1920x1080

‘Untitled’  contributing to the research project ‘Voice Of The Embroiderer’, a short film produced alongside the seven commissioned embroidery works. 

The video draws on the relationship between the lives of the embroiderers and their embroidery techniques as a structure. The sound editing combines ambient sounds, adhan (prayer) calls from a nearby mosque, live dialogues recorded during the making of the film and uses a poem written and recited by Quddous. The poem becomes an entry into the social interplay of embroidery and the embroiderers echoing how such a delicate practice of hand embroidery co-exists in harsh conditions in the lives of Muslim men. Cutting into complex socio-cultural contexts each take juxtaposes scenes of daily life, food, community gatherings as a visual narrative of embroidery techniques. The film begins with a walk into the neighbourhood towards both home and workplace the karkhana (workshop) of the embroiderers precisely located and privy to a subaltern neighbourhood in Mumbai, India. Staying away from explicit explanations and dialogue usage, as a subjective representation of the embroiderers. Contending how this would be a mitigation of the question what is the voice of the embroiderer?

Essay Excerpt “The Labourers Craft”  is about the debate that emerges from this theme. A gap emerges between the need to keep the practice of embroidery as a craft preserved and the needs of the embroiderers. The first need is the need to preserve embroidery a venerable craft. A lost tradition of embroidery practice in Europe in the Western context but not in the East, here in specific India. With verified knowledge of embroiderers practising embroidery in different parts of India there is a second need, that vies for attention is the needs of the craftsmen embroiderers for economic support. However, I have come to conclude that for the embroiderers the practice of embroidery is a job, and to support them economically is the most urgent thing to do, however, here-in lies my debate and my topic; is this necessarily something they have chosen to be, the craftsman? And if the craftsman embroiderer was allowed to speak in frankness, what would they say? And would they still choose to pursue the profession of the craftsman embroiderer? 

The discussion in this essay dissects the meanings of the term craftsman linguistically by comparing the definition of the craftsman in the West mentioned by Richard Sennett and relates it to the Indian context the ‘karigar’. While the craftsman becomes invisible, as well, government policies do not pay attention to the heritage of embroidery a craft. The essay moves on to note how the effects of fashion commercialises its practice deterring its art form from its inherent prestige losing its veneration to embellishment and adorning of the body. It discusses the question “what is the voice of the embroiderer?” pointing out how the craftsman is forgotten and unrecognised using Gayatri Spivak’s theory “can the subaltern speak?”. In this way mentioning how it is relevant that within predetermined power structures it has become difficult to bring out the voice of the embroiderer who in this context is held into position by the job they have made craft to be, and the embroiderer - craftsman's status in society within a social structure.